Fluorescence properties of Chlorella sp. algae

Abstract

Water quality and its fast and reliable monitoring is the challenge of the future. Design of appropriate biosensors that would be capable of non-invasive identification of water pollution is an important prerequisite for such challenge. Chlorophylls are pigments, naturally presented in all plants that absorb light. The main forms of chlorophyll in algae are chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b, other pigments include xantophylls and beta-carotenes. Our aim was to characterize endogenous fluorescence of the Chlorella sp. algae, present naturally in drinking water. We recorded spatial, spectral and lifetime fluorescence distribution in the native algae. We noted that the fluorescence was evenly distributed in the algae cytosol, but lacked in the nucleus and reached maximum at 680-690 nm. Fluorescence decay of chlorella sp. was double-exponential, and clearly shorter than that of its isolated pigments. For the first time, fluorescence lifetime image of the algae is presented. Study of the fluorescence properties of algae is aimed at the improvement of water supply contamination detection and cleaning.