Bacteria and Fungi have capability to produce wide variety of pigments which have wide spectrum applications

1. Fungal and Bacterial Pigments
Secondary Metabolites with Wide
Applications
Frontiers in Microbiology(2017)
Manik Prabhu Narsing Rao1†, Min Xiao1† and Wen-Jun Li1,2*
Sushil Patel

2. Introduction
• Natural colours is increasing day by day due to harmful effects
of some synthetic dyes.
• Bacterial and fungal pigments provide a readily available
alternative source of naturally derived pigments.
• They have enormous advantages including rapid growth, easy
processing, and independence of weather conditions.
• Apart from colorant, bacterial and fungal pigments possess
many biological properties such as antioxidant, antimicrobial
and anticancer activity. This review outlines different types of
pigments.

3. Why Microbial Pigments
• More efficient and cost-effective
• More feasible
• Do not have seasonal constraints, do not compete for limited
farming land with actual foods
• Can be produced easily in the cheap culture medium with high
yields
• Availability of microbes throughout year
• Rapid growth in low cost medium, easy processing, and growth
that is independent of weather conditions.
• Wide range of temperature and pH stability of microbes are
more suitable for industry.

4. Drawbacks of plant pigments
• Throughout over availability of plants
• Stability of the pigment
• Solubility of the pigments
• Large scale use of plant may leads to loss of
biodiversity or species richness.

5. Global market of Pigments
• The demand for organic pigments and dyes is expected to
reach almost 10 million tons by 2017((Babitha, 2009).
• The carotenoids alone are estimated to reach $1.4 billion
by 2018 (Venil et al., 2014).
• Microbial production of b-carotene costs approximately
US$1000/kg versusUS$500/kg for synthetic means.
• There is an increased push to reduce the production costs
for microbial pigments by using low cost substrates or
strain improvements, and in the near future, there may be
a monopoly market for microbial pigments.

6. Industrial application of pigments
• Textile industries remains the largest consumer
of organic pigments and dyes.
• Also used in printing inks, paints, and coating
agents.
• The International food colorant market which
was estimated at around $1.15 billion USD in
2007 (Mapariet al., 2010) may also increase in
the future due to food coloring approval for use
in the food industry (Aberoumand, 2011).
• The pigment produced by Penicillium aculeatum
which is used in soft drink.

7. Fungal pigments and their applications
S.No. Fungi Pigment Application
1 Aspergillus versicolor Asperversin Antifungal agent
2 Fusarium sp. JN158 Benzoquinon Anticancer agent
3 Fusarium oxysporum Anthraquinone Dyeing of wool
fabrics
4 Talaromyces verruculosus Red pigment Dye textile
having
antimicrobial
activity
5 Stemphylium lycopersici Anthraquinone Antioxidant

8. Fungal Pigments
• Filamentous fungi are known to produce an extraordinary range of pigments such as
carotenoids, melanins, flavins, phenazines, quinones, monascins, violacein, and indigo
(Dufosse et al., 2014).
• Monascus produce yellow (ankaflavine, monascine), orange (rubropunctatine,
monascorubrine), and purple (rubropunctamine, monascorubramine) pigments which are
often encountered in Oriental foods(Dufosse et al., 2005).
• Monascus pigments possess antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-mutagenic, and anti-obesity
properties (Feng et al., 2012).
• There are more than 200 fungal species reported for carotenes production (Dufosse et al.,
2005).
• Carotenes production was often found in zygomycetes from the order Mucorales, which
includes Phycomyces, Blakeslea, and Mucor.
• Carotene production has been reported in the basidiomycetes genera such as
Rhodosporidium, Sclerotium, Sclerotinia, Sporidiobolus, and Ustilago.

9. Continue…..
• Ascomycetes such as Aspergillus, Cercospora, Penicillium, and
Aschersonia have also been reported for carotenes production (Avalos and
Carmen Limon, 2015).
• Properties of marine pigments usually same as terrestrial pigments but
some pigments only produced by marine fungi for example Yellow
pigment (anthracene-glycoside asperflavinribofuranoside)produced by a
marine fungi Microsporum sp. (Li et al., 2006).
• Pigments such as anthraquinones, naphthaquinones, dihydroxy naphthalene
melanin, flavin, anthraquinone, chrysophanol, cynodontin,
helminthosporin, tritisporin, and erythroglaucin were reported by genera
such as Eurotium,Fusarium Curvularia and Drechslera (Babitha, 2009).

10. Endophytic fungi in pigment production
• Marine-derived endophytic fungi
• Eurotium rubrum
• Halorosellinia
• Hortaea, Phaeotheca, and Trimmatostroma
have been reported for pigment production.

11. Bacterial pigments and their applications
S.No. Bacteria Pigment Application
1 Micromonospora lupine Anthraquinone Antitumor agent
2 Streptomyces sp. Carotenoid Food-grade pigment
3 Chromobacterium Violacein Anti-tumor, anti-microbial, and anti-
parasitic agent
4 Chromobacterium sp. NIIST (MTCC 5522) Violacein Antifungal agent
5 Hymenobacter sp. and Chryseobacterium sp. Carotenoid Photo-sensitizers in dye sensitized solar
cells
6 Streptomyces glaucescens NEAE-H Melanin Anti-cancer agent and anti-oxidant
7 Pseudomonas aeruginosa Pyocyanin Anti-microbial agent
8 Hahella chejuensis Prodiginines Antibiotic
9 Pedobacter Carotenoid Antioxidant
10 Vogesella indigofera Blue pigment Detect heavy metal

12. Gap area of the research
• Many marine ecological niches are still unexplored.
• Marine environment contains low temperatures, absence of
light and high pressure and salinity, in these conditions marine
microorganism can produce pigments. Genera such as
Aspergillus (He et al., 2012), Penicillium (Dhale and Vijay
Raj, 2009), Trichoderma (Blaszczyk et al., 2014), and
Eurotium (Smetanina et al., 2007) have been reported for
pigment production.

13. Factors which affect pigment production
• Pigment production by fungi in acedic condition e.g.
Monascus purpureus, Isaria farinosa, Emericella nidulans,
Fusarium verticillioides, and Penicillium purpurogenum.
• Pigment produced by Thermomyces was stable from
acidic to moderate alkaline conditions (pH 5.1 and 8.0)
(Poorniammal and Gunasekaran, 2015).
• The pigment produced by Monascus purpureus was stable
even at high alkaline conditions (pH 11) (Huang et al.,
2011).