Effect of metabolic inhibitors on growth and carotenoid production in Dunaliella bardawil.

Dunaliella bardawil, a green alga accumulates high amount of β-carotene under stress conditions. This organism has been exploited for β-carotene at industrial scale. In the present work, various metabolic inhibitors like diphenylamine (DPA), nicotine, basta, glyphosate, DCMU [3-(3',4'-dichlophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea] and caffeine were used in autotrophic medium, to understand their influence on carotenoid biosynthesis. The results indicated that these metabolic inhibitors influenced the production of carotenoids like wise, DPA and basta increased the contents of β-carotene (1.7 fold), glyphosate and DCMU for lutein (2.4 and 2 fold) caffeine for biomass yields (1.1 fold), while nicotine decreased the biomass yield (3.6 fold), β-carotene (2 fold) and lutein (10.5 fold).