Bacterial Pigments: Sustainable Compounds With Market Potential for Pharma and Food Industry

Abstract

The continued universal application of synthetic colorants for decades have caused environmental pollutions and human health vulnerabilities. So, it was indispensable to discover novel natural colorants such as microbial colorants which were safer and better than synthetic colorants. The potential of bacterial pigments for mass production of diversified coloring properties was first prospective and is now getting the notable importance and attention of both the researchers and industries. Literature establishes that the natural colorants produced from microbes were applied in food and pharma products successfully. Apart from serving as food colorants, bacterial pigments have several pharmacological activities like anti-microbial, anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic properties with large economic potential. And, there is vast scope for easy and cheap production of natural colorants in all seasons from bacterial sources, compared to plant sources. Tactics in strain improvement, fermentation conditions, metabolic engineering, and easy extraction techniques are needed to produce high end products. This review highlights the significance of bacterial colorants and summarizes its application in food and pharma industries. Further, the major challenge of lower stability of bacterial pigments and the solution to address it is also appraised.

Agro-Industrial Residues: Eco-Friendly and Inexpensive Substrates for Microbial Pigments Production

“…The agro-industrial residues are defined as many different wastes from the food and agriculture industry. These residues include multiple plant-based materials, such as straws, stems, stalks, leaves, husks, shells, peels, lint, seeds, pulps, stubbles, bagasse, spent coffee grounds, brewer's spent grains, and some animal byproducts, including feathers and whey (Madeira et al, 2017;Venil et al, 2020a). The efficient transformation of these residues has become a central environmental issue in recent years, with great attention being given to energy generation (e.g., biodiesel production) (Vandamme, 2009).…”

An Overview on Industrial and Medical Applications of Bio-Pigments Synthesized by Marine Bacteria

“…Europe holds the forefront for cutting synthetic colorants’ economy by utilizing natural dyes, which make up 85% of total dyes produced. It is evaluated that growing interests towards ready to eat and pre-packaged food items in China, India, and Middle-East countries will also drive the market of food colorants in the Asia Pacific as well [ 168 ].…”

Natural Pigments of Microbial Origin

“…Pangenomics analysis was used for identification of the tryptophan genes cluster as indispensable on the production of blue pigments by Pseudomonas fluorescens (Andreani et al, 2015). Moreover, genomics information becomes indispensable for improving microbial pigment production through genetic manipulation (Venil et al, 2020b), and supports the identification and/or confirmation of produced pigments by novel microorganisms (Varasteh et al, 2020).…”

“…Recent works have reinforced the use of metabolic engineered microorganisms for pigments production (Mohammad et al, 2020) and the application of these methodologies to produce microalgae biopigments (Saini et al, 2020). Different research groups around the world are directing the research to the use of metabolic and genetic engineering for pigment production, including the use in foods subjected to regulatory approval (Sen et al, 2019;Kalra et al, 2020;Venil et al, 2020b).…”

“…Many natural pigments besides fulfilling their function of giving color are known as interesting bioactive compounds with potential health benefits. These compounds have a wide range of applications in medicine, food, pharmacology, agrochemicals, cosmetics, among others (Venil et al, 2020b). Numerous microbial bioactive pigments have been discovered and many of them show antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and/or antimicrobial properties (Ramesh et al, 2019).…”