Toxins produced by harmful algal blooms (HABs) are known to pose contamination risks to seafood products (e.g. fish and shellfish) consumed by human. In order to control contamination risks, monitoring regimes have to be performed rigorously. The effort to monitor the amount of toxins in consumable products has to rely on continuous supply to analytical standards. The current work presents the strategy in optimising the production of major diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) toxins, OA and DTX1, from Prorocentrum lima. The organism is also known to produce peridinin, a carotenoid pigment that has been found to have pharmaceutical potential. Results from this study showed that cultivation of P. lima CCAP 1136/11 was still, although not completely, reliant on supply of natural seawater. Characterisation of compounds produced by P. lima CCAP 1136/11 in batch culture identified three major bioactive compounds (OA, DTX1 and peridinin) and two minor OA-related compounds. Recovery of these major compounds was further optimised with two-stage extraction procedure. Several important considerations for the cultivation process include standardisation of inoculum age and initial cell density. These and several other growth parameters such as temperature, light and CO2 supplementation have been shown to affect the growth and production of DSP toxins and peridinin in the culture. One of the main highlights in this study revealed that providing culture with light and dark cycle at frequency of 0.5 hour benefit in the enhancement of OA, DTX1 and peridinin yield from P. lima CCAP 1136/11. As the last part of this study, a simple and scalable design of reactor has been proposed. Contrary to common observations for dinoflagellate culture, P. lima CCAP 1136/11 was found to be able to withstand increased sparging within the culture system, resulting in concomitant increased of growth and production of OA, DTX1 and peridinin. Future works have been suggested to focus on: (1) exploitation of different cultivation system, such as continuous or semicontinuous systems, and (2) exploration on genetic modification to enable commercial scale production of DSP toxins and peridinin.

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