Nannochloropsis Protein as Potential Fish Feed

Recently, micro-algal biomass has attached much attention due to wide diversity of compounds synthesized from different metabolic pathways. A rapid, convenient small scale method for micro-algal protein extraction in an optimized sequential extraction in trichloroacetic acid (TCA) and NaOH to achieve chemical lysis. Incubation of lyophilized material in 20 % (w/v) TCA at 65C followed by hot alkaline treatment. Extraction process can be complete in 3h and protein concentration was determined by Lowry method, requiring further 30min of incubation. The results showed that the protein concentration of the crude extract was 28.8 %. The highest concentration of protein fraction was indicated by the fraction 0-80 %. These results demonstrate that inexpensive Nannochloropsis sp. could be a new alternative to produce protein.