Ricerc@Sapienza

Microalgae are a rich source of organic macromolecules, such as lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, and pigments. Due to the high content of lipids in microalgae, they have been attracting increasing attention as a source of lipids for various commercial applications, for example in the manufacturing of food supplements or in the chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In the literature, investigations of the lipid profile of microalgae are mainly focused on free fatty acids and triacylglycerols, whereas information on the occurrence of glyco-, sulpho- and phospholipids is rather scarce. As the amount of lipids in microalgae is relatively small (15¿30 % on average depending on the species), the extraction procedure must be as efficient as possible to maximize lipids recovery. For this reason, in this project different lipids extraction procedure will be tested to extract polar lipids from spirulina microalgae, also using different solvents (methanol, tert-butyl-methyl-ether, chloroform). Lipids extract will be analyzed by Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled to high resolution tandem mass spectrometry (MS) followed by a bioinformatics analysis by Lipostar, a comprehensive platform-neutral cheminformatics tool for lipidomics. Before analyzing real samples, a chromatographic optimization, based on the type and concentration of mobile phase additives, gradients and pH of mobile phase, will be carried out in order to separate the largest number of individual lipid classes with emphasis on glyco-, sulpho- and phospho- lipids under MS-compatible conditions. The optimized procedure will be applied to the analysis of spirulina microalgae for identification of possible new polar lipid species