Chlorophyll catabolites in conditioned media of green microalga Desmodesmus subspicatus

Although the appearance of coloured chlorophyll degradation products of higher plants is well known, knowledge about such compounds produced and released particularly by planktonic algae is still limited. Colourless conditioned media (CM) obtained from autotrophic cultures of unicellular green alga Desmosdemus subspicatus turn red after acidification. The accumulation of red pigments in the medium and the growth rate of algae were inversely correlated. The red, crude solution isolated from CM by dialysis and ion exchange chromatography, and next purified by means of high-performance liquid chromatography, appeared to be a mixture of three compounds with characteristic UV/VIS absorption maxima near 330 and 505 nm. Electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry analysis revealed that the molecular mass of the most polar and most abundant compound was 637 Da and molecular masses of two other ones were 641 and 607 Da. Addition of 15 N isotope to the culture medium and subsequent mass spectrometry measurements revealed the occurrence of four nitrogen atoms per each molecule. The data suggest that red pigments isolated from algal-conditioned media are chlorophyll degradation compounds, the production of which depends on light intensity, and are released mainly during the stationary phase of growth.