On the Pigment Produced by Chromobacterium violaceum

Abstract

THE bacterial pigments in general have received very little attention and any systematic investigations in this field have been confined mainly to the pigments produced by pathogenic organisms such as Bacillus pyocyaneus. The small amount of pigment formed in most cases is no doubt responsible for this. The extraordinarily intense development of pigment produced in a sample of milk through the growth of Chromobacterium violaceum, to which our attention was directed, suggested that this was a pigment which could be produced in sufficiently large quantities for examination, and it was decided to undertake the investigation, particularly as no detailed chemical examination seemed to have been made previously. Schneider [1895]. The pigment from B. violaceus was submitted to a spectroscopic analysis by Hartley [1913], and was considered by him to differ from those described by the authors mentioned inasmuch as it showed more marked absorption in the red. It is possible, however, that the pigment in all these cases was the same-for the earlier spectroscopie observations of Lecoq de Boisbaudran and Schneider were probably not exact enough for the differences to be significant-while the qualitative chemical reactions ascribed to the pigment by all these authors are in fair agreement. The organism producing it is now commonly described as Chromobacterium violaceum (Bergey, Manual of Determinative Bacteriology). Hartley prepared the pigment by extraction of slices of potato, on which the bacterium grows well, with absolute alcohol, followed by evaporation to dryness. The material obtained in this way can hardly have been very pure. but probably sufficed for the qualitative tests employed and for spectroscopic examination in the absence of any strongly coloured impurities.For the present work the pigment has been obtained mainly by growth in a lactose broth medium. Isolation and purification presented some

Synergistic antimicrobial profiling of violacein with commercial antibiotics against pathogenic micro-organisms

“…Violacein, an indole derivative pigment secreted by Chromobacterium violaceum Bergonzini (Neisseriaceae), is chemically characterized as (E)-3-[1,2-dihydro-5-(5-hydroxy-1H-indol-3-yl)-2-oxo-3H-pyrrol -3-ylidene]-1,3-dihydro-2H-indol-2-one ( Figure 1). The chemical structure of the violet pigment has been studied in detail (Reilly & Pyne, 1927). The antibacterial activity of violacein was established under specific conditions (Lichstein et al, 1945), and later studies on the antibacterial activities have been done with purified violacein, demonstrating equal efficiency against both the Gram-negative and -positive groups (Duran et al, 1994).…”

The Violacein Biosynthetic Enzyme VioE Shares a Fold with Lipoprotein Transporter Proteins

“…1) is a purple pigment that gives tropical bacterium Chromobacterium violaceum its characteristic coloring (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). Violacein 5 has potential medical applications as an antibacterial (6 -8), anti-tryptanocidal (8 -10), anti-ulcerogenic (11), and anti-cancer drug (8,(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17).…”

Proteomic analysis of Chromobacterium violaceum and its adaptability to stress

“…Chromobacterium violaceum is a soil and water borne Gram-negative β-proteobacterium that is found in tropical and subtropical regions and produces the intense purple pigment violacein [ 1 , 2 ]. Although human infections with C. violaceum have been reported worldwide (reviewed in [ 3 , 4 ]) opportunistic infections caused by the species are rare and research interest in the species has historically focused on its potential biotechnological and pharmaceutical applications [ 5 – 9 ].…”