The effect of reducing light-harvesting pigment on marine microalgal productivity

The productivity was evaluated of a strain of Chlamydomonas perigranulata isolated from the RedSea. A mutant with small light-harvesting pigments(LHC-1) was obtained by UV mutagenesis. Thechlorophylls content of the wild type was twice ashigh as that of LHC-1, and the initial slope of thephotosynthesis-irradiance curve was higher in the wildtype. However, the maximum photosynthetic activity ona per cell basis was almost the same. It isconcluded that LHC-1 is a mutant with lesslight-harvesting pigment (LHP) than the wild type. Aspreviously reported, the mutant with lower LHP contenthas a higher productivity in a continuous culturesystem, so we compared the productivity of the wildtype and the mutant. The maximum productivity of LHC-1was 1.5 times higher than that of the wild type. Itis suggested that the technique of reducing thecontent of light-harvesting pigment should be madeavailable for other organisms.