Investigation on production of the beta-carotene biopolymer from Dunaliella salina algae in saline water of the Urmia Lake

Vitamin A deficiency is a major public health problem worldwide, especially in developing nations, where availability of foods containing preformed vitamin A is limited. Beta-carotene can be used as precursor to vitamin A and has antioxidant effect. The green unicellular flagellate Dunaliella salina is the richest natural source of the carotenoid β-carotene. Carotenoids are a class of pigments which containes beta-carotene. Under stress conditions such as high light intensity, salinity stress or nutrient starvation, cells of the unicellular alga Dunaliella salina overproduce β-carotene. The most suitable media for the isolated Dunaliella species at lab scale cultivation was found to be modified Johnson media, which gave the highest growth and β-carotene production, so that Dunaliella cells were cultivated in an inorganic media (Johnson media). Operating conditions in the salinity stress tests and light stress in incubator shaker, temperature 28 ° C, with light intensity 100 LUX have been used. In this study, 2% (w/v) Salt of Urmia lake, 20% (w/v) Salt of Urmia lake, 20% (w/v) Salt of Urmia Lake with 25 (μM) Thiamine and 2% (w/v) Salt of Urmia Lake with high light intensity, 20% (w/v) Salt of Urmia lake with high light intensity, 20% (w/v) Salt of Urmia lake with high light intensity and 25 (μM) Thiamine on pure samples of microalgae Dunaliella Salina have been applied. Then, Cell Counting, Dry weight, Optical Density, chlorophyll production, Carotenoid, Protein and accumulation of beta-carotene have been studied.