Comparative study of the impact of conventional and unconventional drying processes on phycobiliproteins from Arthrospira platensis

The drying process significantly affects the maintaining components offering the high added value of the dried biomass, mainly for the algae industry where the wet biomass is highly perishable. The main objective of this study is to compare the impact of drying processes that are often used in the food industry on phycobiliproteins from Arthrospira platensis. Although total proteins do not show a significant difference, soluble proteins show a significant difference between processes. To improve the phycocyanin yield, the chemical extraction method was combined with a combination of ultrasonication and maceration which resulted in the highest yield of 6.215 ± 0.310% with a purity of 1.666 ± 0.063 for convective drying; 4.629 ± 0.215% with a purity of 9.966 ± 0.183 and 4.382 ± 0.211% with a purity of 2.859 ± 0.125 for Freeze and spray drying, respectively. In addition, the phycobiliproteins fractions efficiency has shown a significant difference between processes, for the whole of phycocyanin, phycoerythrin, and allophycocyanin. Subsequently, the spectrophotometric quantification of different fractions Allophycocyanin, Phycocyanin, and Phycoerythrin were confirmed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-PAGE. Convection drying has been observed to be the most suitable drying process for a more efficient keeping of the proteins of interest. •No significant differences are detected in the total protein content found for freeze, spray, and convective drying samples.•The significant differences are detected in regard to the soluble proteins in different processes.•The phycobiliproteins fractions levels are also depended on type of drying process.•The study confirms that microalga is characterized by low molecular weights of proteins, which is common to cyanobacteria.