Astaxanthin Production using Phytohormones and Salt Stress in Haematococcus pluvialis.

Giberellic acid (GA3) and abscisic acid (ABA) are phytohormones. In higher plants these phytohormones affect the growth of plants. It is usually known that GA3 enhances cell division and controls the growth of the plants and ABA is the stress hormone which enhances tolerance to stress condition. Some articles have shown that these phytohormones also affected to microalgae. Especially, ABA induced morphological change of Haematococcus pluvialis from vegetative cell to cyst form in stress condition. To improve astaxanthin productivity, the complex stress condition is used, light stress, nutrient deficiency and so on. In this study, we use GA3 and ABA in salt and light stress condition to induce astaxanthin in Haematococcus pluvialis.