Microalgal carotenoids: Potential nutraceutical compounds with chemotaxonomic importance.

There are more than 600 different carotenoids which perform a range of functions in various organisms including microalgae. In the present study, chemosystematics approach was followed to segregate 57 microalgal strains based on their carotenoid composition using principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering. The present findings suggest that lutein and violaxanthin can be effective chemotaxonomic markers for Chlorophyta members with an average content of 1.26 mg g − 1 and 0.14 mg g − 1 dry cell weight (DCW), respectively. Similarly, myxoxanthophyll and echinenone can be used as markers for Cyanophyta members with average contents of 0.23 mg g − 1 and 0.32 mg g − 1 DCW, respectively. The total carotenoid content ranged from 0.23 to 7.2 mg g − 1 DCW. Our method combining PCA and artificial hierarchical clustering has been proposed as an alternative method for identification of carotenoids as biomarkers for classifying unknown microalgal strains based on their pigment profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]