Production of C-Phycocyanin using Spirulina sp. NCIM 5143 as Cell Factory and its Potential Application as a Therapeutic Agent

Abstract

An end-to-end process for production of C-phycocyanin from indigenous strain viz. Spirulina sp. NCIM 5143 was demonstrated along with an insight into exploring its potential as a therapeutic agent. Through optimization of critical parameters, an improved biomass titre, overproduction of C-phycocyanin, enhanced C-phycocyanin extraction yield and analytical grade purification were achieved. Additionally, the cyanobacterial strain was characterized for its pigment and biochemical composition. The key drawbacks in current state of art C-phycocyanin production i.e. low extraction yield, low purity levels, low intracellular C-phycocyanin and biomass titre were addressed. This was achieved by employing a bottom to top approach, where a downstream protocol was optimized first (to ensure an optimized extraction protocol) followed by overproduction of C-phycocyanin in spirulina cultures by optimizing the upstream parameters.