Obtaining dried extracts from the biomass of the microalga Haematococcus pluvialis by spray drying

ABSTRACT Carotenoids comprise a class of more than 600 natural pigments whose biological potential is related to their antioxidant activity, regulation of cell growth, modulation of the immune response and anti-inflammatory activity. Haematococcus pluvialis is a green microalga known to synthesize and accumulate large amounts of carotenoids, among them astaxanthin. The objective of this work was to prepare and characterize dry extracts of H. pluvialis by spray drying technique, evaluating the effect of the use of pharmaceutical adjuvants and the drying parameters on the final characteristics of dry extracts. In addition, the antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of the carotenoids obtained from the dried extracts were evaluated. When the extraction of the carotenoids from the microalgae biomass was evaluated, high yield values ranging from 87.8% to 94.6% were obtained. After extraction and spray drying no differences in particle morphology were observed and bulk density and compacted values did not appear to be affected when different spray drying conditions were tested. It was observed that increasing the temperature and concentration of the drying aid provided a reduction in the total carotenoid content. The antioxidant activity values of carotenoid extracts varied between 55.78 and 77.83%, with the lowest values observed for the dry extracts prepared with the highest inlet temperature. The evaluation of the antiproliferative activity of carotenoid extracts showed that the highest concentrations tested reduced the viability of B16F10 murine melanoma cells from 66.58 and 82.91%. Thus, the results set showed that the extraction of dry extracts from the biomass of Haematococcus pluvialis for the production of pharmaceutical raw materials using spray drying is especially promising, with high total carotenoid values, and without significant loss of antioxidant activity.