Efficacy of red light for enhanced cell disruption and fluorescence intensity of phycocyanin

In this study, red LED and urea used as light and nitrogen sources, respectively, for the cultivation of Spirulina to enhance the fluorescence property and purity of phycocyanin. Besides, there is a high concentration of phycocyanin leached out from red light (RL) grown cells than white light (WL) without cell disruption. This type of cultivation reduces the complexity of extraction methods and cost of the downstream process. The fluorescence intensity of C-PC enhanced while using red LEDs and purity ratio improved by single-step cation exchange chromatography. Phycocyanin from red-light-exposed culture exhibited pronounced antibacterial activity against bacteria. The hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity of C-PC (93.7%) is higher than the WL cultures (88.8%). Phycocyanin from RL culture exhibited a strong antiproliferative activity (64.1%) against HeLa cancer cell line. The present study aims to analyze the influence of red light and urea on enhancing the phycocyanin production.