Occurrence and Importance of Plant Lipids: A Promising Insight into Algae.

Background: Lipids are biomolecules with interesting structural variability. They are involved in many processes such as the storage of energy, in nutrition and are also of relevance for signal transduction processes, in apoptosis, cell differentiation and phagocytosis, etc. Macroalgae and microalgae are a promising and very diverse group of organisms. These living arganisms inhabit a vaste range of ecosystems from the Antarctic to the Deserts. They account for above half the primary productivity at the base of the food chain because of their multiple nutritional products including, for instance, lipids.

Results: Recently, studies on the oleaginous algae encompass their uses for commercial exploitations with applications ranging from human health food, animal feed, aquaculture, nutraceutical, biofuels and others. In this article, updated knowledge of lipids and recent research studies for algae's valorization performed by several authors were reviewed. Special attention was paid to lipids accumulation and their characterization.

Conclusion: The selection of the prominent species of algae will be of great importance to satisfy the corresponding valorization process. Patents identified with algal lipids composition, production and application are presented.