A pilot-scale bioprocess to produce amphidinols from the marine microalga Amphidinium carterae: Isolation of a novel analogue

Marine dinoflagellate microalgae belonging to the genus Amphidinium are a key source of an interesting group of polyketide metabolites with potent bioactivities, wide-ranging functional diversity and stereochemical complexity, but low natural availabilities. The feasibility of a microalgae dinoflagellate-based sustainable bioprocess for producing amphidinols (APDNs) by photoautotrophic culture of Amphidinium carterae in a pilot-scale LED-illuminated bubble column photobioreactor (PBR) was therefore investigated. A fed-batch culture mode with pulse feeding strategy provided a growth pattern strongly limited by the availability of phosphate content in the culture medium that stimulated the production of cellular APDNs. Since A. carterae was found to be much more shear-sensitive than other shear-tolerant non-dinoflagellate microalgae, the culture height and air flow rate were established to ensure the absence of damaging levels of hydrodynamic stress. The biomass capacity yielded by the PBR at the end of the culture (0.540 g d.w. L−1 equivalent to 1.70 × 106 cell mL−1) corresponded to that estimated stoichiometrically from the experimentally determined biomass P-molar formula (C329 O126 H732 N69 S3 P1) and the total phosphorus and nitrogen balances. The downstream processing section was initially conceived to recover APDNs excreted by cells into the supernatant. A dry APDN-enriched extract concentration of 49 mg per liter of supernatant was obtained. This purification process led to partitioning of the extract into several fractions and sub-fractions thereof. Only two sub-fractions were studied, yielding thereof highly pure (>95% pure) luteophanol D and lingshuiol A, and a new, roughly purified (>80% pure) APDN, namely amphidinol 20. The percentages of luteophanol D, lingshuiol A and amphidinol 20 by dry weight of the APDN-enriched extract obtained were 1%, 0.39% and 0.31%, respectively, thus representing a concentration in the culture supernatant of 490, 191 and 152 μg L−1, respectively.