초록
<P>There is a particularly high interest to derive carotenoids such as β-carotene and lutein from higher plants and algae for the global market. It is well known that β-carotene can be overproduced in the green microalga <I>Dunaliella salina</I> in response to stressful light conditions. However, little is known about the effects of light quality on carotenoid metabolism, e.g., narrow spectrum red light. In this study, we present UPLC-UV-MS data from <I>D. salina</I> consistent with the pathway proposed for carotenoid metabolism in the green microalga <I>Chlamydomonas reinhardtii</I>. We have studied the effect of red light-emitting diode (LED) lighting on growth rate and biomass yield and identified the optimal photon flux for <I>D. salina</I> growth. We found that the major carotenoids changed in parallel to the chlorophyll <I>b</I> content and that red light photon stress alone at high level was not capable of upregulating carotenoid accumulation presumably due to serious photodamage. We have found that combining red LED (75 %) with blue LED (25 %) allowed growth at a higher total photon flux. Additional blue light instead of red light led to increased β-carotene and lutein accumulation, and the application of long-term iterative stress (adaptive laboratory evolution) yielded strains of <I>D. salina</I> with increased accumulation of carotenoids under combined blue and red light.</P><P><B>Electronic supplementary material</B></P><P>The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00253-012-4502-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.</P>