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Sustainability and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae): facts and challenges

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Abstract

Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) are widely distributed Gram-negative oxygenic photosynthetic prokaryotes with a long evolutionary history. They have potential applications such as nutrition (food supplements and fine chemicals), in agriculture (as biofertilizer and in reclamation of saline USAR soils) and in wastewater treatment (production of exopolysaccharides and flocculants). In addition, they also produce wide variety of chemicals not needed for their normal growth (secondary metabolites) which show powerful biological activities such as strong antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, antimalarial, antitumoral and anti-inflammatory activities useful for therapeutic purposes. In recent years, cyanobacteria have gained interest for producing biofuels (both biomass and H2 production). Because of their simple growth needs, it is potentially cost-effective to exploit cyanobacteria for the production of recombinant compounds of medicinal and commercial value. Recent advances in culture, screening and genetic engineering techniques have opened new ways to exploit the potential of cyanobacteria. This review analyses the sustainability of cyanobacteria to solve global problems such as food, energy and environmental degradation. It emphasizes the need to adopt multidisciplinary approaches and a multi-product production (biorefinery) strategy to harness the maximum benefit of cyanobacteria.

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Acknowledgements

NKS is thankful to the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, New Delhi for financial assistance in form of a fellowship (IUSSTF Fellowship-2010).

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  1. Department of Botany, Postgraduate College, Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, 233001, India

    Naveen K. Sharma

  2. Department of Applied Microbiology, VBS Poorvanchal University, Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, 221001, India

    Sri Prakash Tiwari

  3. Department of Botany, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, 221005, India

    Keshwanand Tripathi & Ashwani K. Rai

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  1. Naveen K. Sharma
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Correspondence to Ashwani K. Rai.

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Sharma, N.K., Tiwari, S.P., Tripathi, K. et al. Sustainability and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae): facts and challenges. J Appl Phycol 23, 1059–1081 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-010-9626-3

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