| Summary: | The availability of clean water and sustainable food and energy production represents significant challenges for the next century, which emphasizes the importance renewable and energetically neutral methods that can be deployed in the developing and developed world. Coccomyxa subellipsoidea , a unicellular green microalga isolated from the Antarctic, is of particular interest due to [1] sustained growth over a range of temperate climates, [2] ability to accumulate high levels of triglycerides under abiotic stress conditions for potential use in biofuel/bioproduct production, [3] providing biomass for slow‐release nitrogenous biofertilizers and [4] potential as a catalytic organism in the process of bioremediation of EPA‐regulated wastewater. The introduction of abiotic stress conditions (including nitrogen deprivation) on C. subellipsoidea is costly and energetically unfavorable resulting in a significant decrease in chloroplast integrity, which is correlated with decreases in biomass, triglyceride accumulation and function in bioremediation. In order for C. subellipsoidea to be deployed in these interrelated processes, methods must be developed to promote growth and the generation of biomass in concert with high levels of triglyceride synthesis and use in bioremediation. This research has developed a co‐culture phototrophic growth system using C. subellipsoidea and a mixture of proprietary denitrifying bacteria. Using Bold's Basal Media (BBM) and standard growth conditions, culturing C. subellipsoidea with denitrifying bacteria induces high levels of triglyceride accumulation production in the alga without a loss of biomass; the control C. subellipsoidea alone does not accumulate triglyceride. These observations led to the hypothesis that the denitrifying bacteria produce a soluble signal that induces metabolic pathways in C. subellipsoidea required for triglyceride synthesis. When the bacteria are grown independently, harvested by centrifugation and the spent media autoclaved and mixed with new BBM, C. ...
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