Chlorella pyrenoidosa, is a deep green algae that is rich in protein, various vitamins, and minerals. It is commonly used as a dietary supplement and a new source of protein, and can help promote a healthy diet and boost immunity. However, wild-type Chlorella pyrenoidosa is a challenge and limitation for downstream protein extraction and food applications due to its deep green color.

Recently, PROTOGA successfully obtained yellow and white protein Chlorella pyrenoidosa through microalgae breeding technology and completed pilot-scale fermentation production trials. The iteration of Chlorella pyrenoidosa color can further reduce the cost of microalgae protein extraction.

Using mutation breeding technology, PROTOGA R&D team screened hundreds of candidate algae strains from 150,000 mutants and obtained stable and inheritable yellow protein Chlorella pyrenoidosa YYAM020 and white chlorella YYAM022 after multiple rounds of screening.

YYAM020 and YYAM022 were tested in the pilot-scale fermentation system and their growth level and protein content were comparable to wild-type. The development of YYAM020 and YYAM022 can reduce the decolorization step in the microalgae protein extraction process and lower the extraction cost by around 20%, while significantly improving the color, taste, and protein nutrition of microalgae protein.

Microalgae are highly nutritious and contain various active ingredients and benefits, but as efficient photosynthetic cells, their intracellular pigment system, such as chlorophyll, is highly developed, which makes many microalgae appear in a thick blue-green color. However, in downstream applications, dark-colored algae powder often dominates the product color tone. Light-colored microalgae whole nutrition powder and microalgae protein powder can have a wider range of applications in the food and cosmetics fields.

The new strains of algae have been patented and stored in PROTOGA algae library. PROTOGA continues to domesticate and optimize the new strains of algae, cultivating high-protein algae strains with multiple excellent traits. PROTOGA not only conducts research and development in microalgae cultivation, microalgae biosynthesis, and microalgae nutrition, but also considers and deconstructs the demand guidance of application end-users to innovate technology and provide customers with various high-quality microalgae-based raw materials and application solutions.