Identification of lipid and saccharide constituents of whole microalgal cells by 13 C solid-state NMR☆

article Microalgae are unicellular organisms in which plasma membrane is protected by a complex cell wall. The chemical nature of this barrier is important not only for taxonomic identification, but also for interactions with exogenous molecules such as contaminants. In this work, we have studied freshwater (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii) and marine (Pavlova lutheri and Nannochloropsis oculata) microalgae with different cell wall charac- teristics. C. reinhardtii is covered by a network of fibrils and glycoproteins, while P. lutheri is protected by small cellulose scales, and the picoplankton N. oculata by a rigid cellulose wall. The objective of this work was to deter- mine to what extent the different components of these microorganisms (proteins, carbohydrates, lipids) can be distinguished by 13 C solid-state NMR with an emphasis on isolating the signature of their cell walls and mem-