Isolations, characterizations and biological activity of phycobiliproteins obtained from Spirulina platensis

The aim of this thesis is molecular characterizations of C-Phycocyanin isolated from Spirulina platensis and determined its antioxidant, mutagenic and cytotoxic effects. Cyanobacteria are important organisms with a high level of chemical and pharmaceutical value. It contains various phycobiliproteins which are photosynthetic pigments other than Chlorophyll a. Phycobiliproteins have wide applications in food, cosmetics and medical fields. Spirulina platensis, a cyanobacterium is culture as algal biomass because of it has high protein content and used as model organism on the last 20 years. C-Phycocyanin was isolated from Spirulina platensis and HPLC (for determination of amino acid composition) and FTIR spectroscopy (for secondary structure determination of protein) were used for protein characterization studies. C-Phycocyanin antioxidant activity, genotoxicity and cytotoxic effect were evaluated by DPPH method, Ames test and MTT assay, respectively. In conclusion, amino acid sequence C-Phycocyanin isolated from S.platensis was determined. It was determined that secondary structure of the protein is α–helix at high proportion. Also the protein has high antioxidant activity with no genotoxicity and cytotoxicity.