Research Article Determination of Volatile Organic Compounds in Selected Strains of Cyanobacteria Ivan MilovanoviT, 1 Aleksandra Mišan, 1 Jelica SimeunoviT, 2 Dajana KovaI, 2 Dubravka Jambrec, 1 and Anamarija MandiT 1 1 Institute of Food Technology, University of Novi Sad, Bulevar cara Lazara 1, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia 2 Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovi´ ca 2, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia Correspondence should be addressed to Anamarija Mandi´ c; anamarija.mandic@ins.uns.ac.rs Received 7 December 2014; Revised 21 January 2015; Accepted 10 February 2015 Academic Editor: Tzortzis Nomikos Copyright © 2015 Ivan Milovanovi´ c et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Microalgal biomass can be used in creating various functional food and feed products, but certain species of microalgae and cyanobacteria are known to produce various compounds causing of-lavour. In this work, we investigated selected cyanobacterial strains of Spirulina, Anabaena, and Nostoc genera originating from Serbia, with the aim of determining the chemical proile of volatile organic compounds produced by these organisms. Additionally, the inluence of nitrogen level during growth on the production of volatile compounds was investigated for Nostoc and Anabaena strains. In addition, multivariate techniques, namely, principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), were used for making distinction among diferent microalgal strains. he results show that the main volatile compounds in these species are medium chain length alkanes, but other odorous compounds such as 2-methylisoborneol (0.51–4.48%), 2-pentylfuran (0.72–8.98%), -cyclocitral (0.00–1.17%), and - ionone (1.15–2.72%) were also detected in the samples. Addition of nitrogen to growth medium was shown to negatively afect the production of 2-methylisoborneol, while geosmin was not detected in any of the analyzed samples, which indicates that the manipulation of growth conditions may be useful in reducing levels of some unwanted odor-causing components. 1. Introduction Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) among all microalgae rep- resent some of the oldest living organisms and show great biological diversity [1, 2]. his evolutionary and phylogenetic diversity also means a great diversity regarding the chemical composition of these organisms, which makes them very attractive for use as sources of a wide range of biomolecules [3]. Microalgae are important sources of commercially pro- duced high-value molecules including carotenoids [4], long- chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), proteins [5, 6], and phycobilins [7–9]. he addition of microalgal biomass to food and feed products is an interesting option for providing nutritional supplementation with these biologically active compounds. Novel foods development requires selection of microalgal species with balanced nutritional proiles and proven health safety. he chemical composition of microalgae is oten highly dependent on various environmental factors, such as temperature, salinity, illumination, pH value, mineral content, CO 2 supply, population density, growth phase, and physiological status [10]. Beside many beneicial properties, microalgae also produce numerous volatile organic com- pounds which can cause musty, ishy, and mud-like odour. Blooms and scums of cyanobacteria can occur in various fresh and brackish water environments, causing musty odour and production of harmful toxins [11]. When microalgal biomass is added to food products, its odour and aroma can inluence the sensory properties of the inal products [12], and, in natural environment, it can also afect the sensory quality of the produced food (e.g., ish) [13]. In this work, we investigated selected strains of Spirulina, Anabaena, and Nostoc originating from Serbia, which were previously proven to be nontoxic under speciied growing conditions [14]. As the investigated strains show a potential for incorporation in novel food products, being rich in proteins and PUFAs [15], the aim of this study was to Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Chemistry Volume 2015, Article ID 969542, 6 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/969542