Chlorella vulgaris, a novel microalgal source for l-asparaginase production

l-asparaginase is an amidohydrolase enzyme which is used for acute lymphoblastic leukemia chemotherapy. In this experiment we have collected 40 microalgal isolates from south of Iran. Intra- and extra-cellular l-asparaginase activity of these isolates were examined and the isolated with the highest activity selected for molecular identification by 18S rDNA sequencing. A partial sequence of ~600 bp was amplified and sequenced. The sequence similarity analysis is done using the BLAST program from the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and there was 100% similarity with other reports for 18S rDNA sequences of Chlorella vulgaris. Also, the GeneDoc software, version 2.6.002, was used for more 18S rDNA sequence investigation. We have found that C. vulgaris can produce an inducible intracellular l-asparaginase in the presence of l-asparagine, and l-asparagine can induce more growth of this microalga.