A Rat Study to Evaluate the Protein Quality of Three Green Microalgal Species and the Impact of Mechanical Cell Wall Disruption.

The present study was conducted to evaluate the protein quality of microalgae species (CV), (CS), and (AO) and assess the impact of mechanical cell wall disruption. Male Sprague-Dawley rats, around 156 g after adaptation, were placed in metabolic cages and fed experimental diets that were either protein-free or contained 10% protein solely from one of the undisrupted or disrupted CV, CS, and AO. After 3 days, feces were collected for a period of 5 days and analyzed together with diet samples for crude protein contents.