Evaluation of Cellular Uptake and Removal of Chlorpropham in the Treatment of <i>Dunaliella salina</i> for Phytoene Production
2022
Laura Mazzucchi | Yanan Xu | Patricia J. Harvey
Chlorpropham is a carbamate herbicide that inhibits cell division and has been widely used as a potato sprout suppressant. Recently we showed that the microalga <i>Dunaliella salina</i> treated with chlorpropham massively accumulated the colourless carotenoids phytoene and phytofluene. Phytoene and phytofluene are valued for their antioxidant, UV-absorption and skin protectant properties; however, they are present in very low quantities in nature. The low toxicity herbicide chlorpropham seems a promising catalyst to produce phytoene in large quantities from CO<sub>2</sub> and solar energy with <i>D. salina</i>. This study explored chlorpropham uptake by the algal cells, the formation of potential intermediate metabolites, and the removal of residual chlorpropham from harvested <i>D. salina</i> biomass. Algal biomass rapidly concentrated chlorpropham from culture media. However, washing the harvested biomass with fresh culture medium twice and five times removed ~83 and ~97% of the chlorpropham from the biomass, respectively, and retained algal cell integrity. Furthermore, chloroaniline, a common metabolite of chlorpropham degradation, was not detected in chlorpropham-treated cultures, which were monitored every two days for thirty days. Cells treated with chlorpropham for either 10 min or 24 h continued to over-accumulate phytoene after resuspension in an herbicide-free medium. These data imply that whilst <i>Dunaliella</i> cells do not possess the intracellular capacity to degrade chlorpropham to chloroaniline, the effect of chlorpropham is irreversible on cell nuclear division and hence on carotenoid metabolism.
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