High-Throughput Biochemical Fingerprinting of Oleaginous Aurantiochytrium sp. Strains by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) for Lipid and Carbohydrate Productions

The traditional biochemical methods for analyzing cellular composition of oleaginous microorganisms are time-consuming, polluting, and expensive. In the present study, an FT-IR method was used to analyze the cellular composition of the marine oleaginous protistAurantiochytriumsp. during various research processes, such as strains screening, medium optimization, and fermentation, and was evaluated as a green, low-cost, high throughput, and accurate method compared with the traditional methods. A total of 109Aurantiochytriumsp. strains were screened for lipid and carbohydrate production and the best results were found for the strains No. 6 and No. 32. The yields and productivities could reach up to 47.2 g/L and 0.72 g/L/h for lipid, 21.6 g/L and 0.33 g/L/h for docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in the strain No. 6, and 15.4 g/L and 0.18 g/L/h for carbohydrate in the strain No. 32, under the optimal conditions, respectively. These results confirmed potentials of the twoAurantiochytriumsp. strains for lipid, DHA, and carbohydrate productions at industrial scales. The FT-IR method in this study will facilitate research on the oleaginousAurantiochytriumsp., and the obtained two strains for lipid and carbohydrate productions will provide the foundations for their applications in medical, food, and feed industries.Keywords:Aurantiochytriumsp., carbohydrate;DHA;feed;FT-IR;high-throughput