UofF researchers stressing algae to boost oil production

In Florida, researchers at the University of Florida are studying how nitrogen starvation stress induces lipid accumulation in green algae, also called chlorella.Their findings, described online this month in the journal Planta, show that lipid accumulation in algal cells begins just hours after they are starved of nitrogen – not days, as scientists previously believed. They also found that about 30 percent of lipids produced under nitrogen stress occurred as the membrane began to degrade inside each cell, the cell recycling the membrane lipids to oil.