As one of the potent organisms for

As one of the potent organisms for production of astaxanthin, Haematococcus pluvialis accumulates high content of natural astaxanthin up to 9.2 mg/g cell. From this viewpoint, it is a challenge for us to extract efficiently the astaxanthin from H. pluvialis cell using several strategies. Sarada et al. evaluated extractability of astaxanthin from cyst cells by treating cells with various solvents and pre-treating the cells with organic and mineral acids at 70∘C. It was shown that hydrochloric acid treatment facilitated 86–94% extractability of astaxanthin. Kobayashi et al. treated H. pluvialis cells with 40% (v/v) acetone for 2 min at 80∘C, followed by lyophilization or treatment of cells with specific lytic enzymes. By these treatments, the extractability of the astaxanthin achieves 70%. In et al. extracted the astaxanthin by treating H. pluvialis cells with several enzymes, and the maximal extractability is 2649 ± 359 g/g cell. Kang and Sim treated H. pluvialis cells with common vegetable oils and the astaxanthin oil yields reach more than 88%. Although several reports on extraction of astaxanthin from H. pluvialis have been available; however, no efficient method has been achieved due to the thick cell wall of organism hindering solvent extraction of astaxanthin.