The Pharma Innovation Journal 2019; 8(12): 416-420

ISSN (E): 2277- 7695

ISSN (P): 2349-8242
NAAS Rating: 5.03 A review on microbial-pigment: A good source of
TPI 2019; 8(12): 416-420
© 2019 TPI biocolour
www.thepharmajournal.com
Received: 19-10-2019
Accepted: 21-11-2019 Shairee Ganguly, Kakali Bandyopadhyay, Purba Dutta and Anirzeet
Shairee Ganguly Pramanik
Assistant Professor, Department
of Food Technology, Guru Abstract
Nanak Institute of Technology,
In today’s world there is a growing demand for healthy food products has lead to the development of
Nilgunj Road, Sodpur, Panihati,
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
“Nutraceutical Food Products”. Development of natural food colours or bio-colours is a growing research
area to shift the synthetic food colours. Bio-colours have many health benefits properties such as anti
Kakali Bandyopadhyay oxidant activity, food products stabilization, anti cancer property, etc. The main challenge faced by the
Associate Professor and Head, industry is the production of natural food pigments in bulk to replace the synthetic colours and also this
Department of Food Technology, extraction process from plant origin is time consuming, expensive and the product yield is low. The
Guru Nanak Institute of sources are non-renewable. In this regard, the micro organisms are less expensive and renewable
Technology, Nilgunj Road, alternative source. In this review paper the competitive study of different microbial pigment is done as
Sodpur, Panihati, Kolkata, well as use of microbial pigment as an alternative of synthetic food pigment and the nutraceuticals
West Bengal, India properties of those pigments are discussed. This paper also highlights the challenges faced and advanced
technologies used in this developing the pigment extracted from microbial sources.
Purba Dutta
B. Tech. Students, Department
Keywords: Bio-colour, micro-organism, nutraceutical, food pigments
of Food Technology, Guru
Nanak Institute of Technology,
Nilgunj Road, Sodpur, Panihati, 1. Introduction
Kolkata, West Bengal, India Colours are a main property of sensory evaluation o any food materials. Since ancient times,
human have added food colours to the food products to make the food look more presentable,
Anirzeet Pramanik to make up for the loss of colours during processing and to improve the quality. Customers
B. Tech. Students, Department
of Food Technology, Guru have since long associated different characteristics of food with colour such as freshness, taste
Nanak Institute of Technology, etc. Hence colours have for long served as the sensory evaluating tool. Due to the ease of
Nilgunj Road, Sodpur, Panihati, production in bulk and the cheapness of production, artificial food colours are being used in
Kolkata, West Bengal, India large scale. However the knowledge about the toxic effect of these artificial food colours
among the population is coming to the fore front. Thus a market shift towards development
and production of Biocolours has been observed. This shift is more so catalyzed by the recent
development of Nutraceutical Food Products as the bio colours are known to contain many
beneficial properties and also natural colours are eco friendly. Thus if they replace artificial
colour, the production of harmful chemicals polluting the environment will also stop. Now
biocolours are generally extracted from plant and vegetable sources which are non renewable
sources. However it has been discovered that pigments extracted from micro organisms can be
an alternate means of production of natural food colours. Hence a Seemingly vast number of
micro organisms found in nature, ease of cultivation of these micro organisms and their
medicinal properties adds to the advantage in extraction and production of natural colours
from them. Bacteria, Fungi, Algae etc. all produces pigments which can be used for production
of bio colours. Among the molecules produced by microorganisms are carotenoids, melanins,
flavins, phenazines, quinines (Joshi et al., 2003; Pankaj et al, 2016) [6, 13].

2. Microbial pigments as food colours

In this earth, uncountable numbers of types of Micro organism are found. Many microbes such
as micro algae, bacteria, fungi etc all are known to produce a variety of pigments. As colour
extraction from microbial sources have some benefits like, cheaper production, easier
Corresponding Author: extraction, higher yields through strain improvement, less lack of raw materials and no
Shairee Ganguly seasonal variations, microbial pigment has become a major source of bio colours (Kamla et al.,
Assistant Professor, Department 2012; Dufosse et al., 2009) [7, 3]. The health benefits of the microbial pigment such as anti
of Food Technology, Guru
Nanak Institute of Technology,
oxidant, non carcinogenic, anti microbial etc adds to the use of microbes. Flavobacterium sp.
Nilgunj Road, Sodpur, Panihati, (yellow pigment: zeaxanthin), Agrobacterium aurantiacum (pink- red pigment: astaxanthin),
Kolkata, West Bengal, India Micrococcus sp. (different colored pigments, carotenoids), Serratia marcescens (red pigment),
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Chromobacterium sp. (violet pigment) and Rheinheimera sp. 2.5 Beta carotene
(blue pigment) (Venil et al., 2013) [20] are some of the β-Carotene belongs to a group of more than 600 compounds,
examples of microbes producing pigments. Now major jointly called as carotenoids (Ludmila et al., 2018) [10]. It is
microbial pigments among carotenoids are Zeaxanthin, basically organic a red orange pigment found in nature. It can
Astaxanthin, canthaxanthin etc. While other pigments be generally regarded as Isoprenoids, a derivative of
includes Violacein, Indigoidine, Prodigiosin and more. Hence Carotenoids. When used as food additive, it is code named
these pigments if extracted successfully can be easily utilized E160a. Beta Carotene is found in carrot, tomatoes, spinach
in colouring of different food products like cake, pastry, milk etc. Beta Carotene is used in ice cream, pastry, crème cheese
etc. etc. Some of the microbial sources are Erythrotrichia carnea
(Algae), Dunaliella tertiolecta (Algae), Phaffia rhodozyma
2.1 Classification of microbial pigment (Fungi), Escherichia coli (bacteria), Serratia marcescens
Microbial Pigment can be classified on the basis of source, (bacteria), Agrobacterium tumefaciens (bacteria), etc.
colour and solubility.
 On basis of Source (Algal Sources, Fungal Sources, 2.6 Prodigiosin
Bacterial Source) Prodigiosin is a secondary metabolite alkaloid with a unique
 On basis of Colour tripyrrole chemical structure produced by bacteria mainly
 Yellow Pigment (Riboflavin, Carotenoids) (Shaikh et al., 2016) [16]. It is a red pigment. Prodigiosin can
 Red Pigment (Prodigiosin, Carotenoids, Porphyrins) be a replacement of natural pigments to synthetic colorants
 Blue Pigment (Indigoidine, Violacein) such as FD&C Red No3, No 40 which is used for colouration
 On basis of Solubility (Water Soluble, Fat Soluble) in beverages, cereals, ice cream cones etc. The main bacterial
strain which produces this pigment is Serratia marcescens,
2.2 Carotenoids other Gram-negative, gamma proteo bacteria such as Vibrio
Carotenoids are a group of pigments which are widely psychroerythrus and Hahella chejuensis. Although this
distributed classes of from red to yellow present in a wide pigment has some draw back such as sensitivity, solubility,
variety of bacteria, algae, fungi, and plants (Kushwaha et al., short stability to pH, high temperature, but spray-dried
2014) [8]. Carotenoids can be found widely in nature. microcapsules containing Prodigiosin was produced. The
Carotenoids are generally lipid soluble compounds and can be particles were successfully applied to yogurt, milk and
easily found in tomatoes, pumpkins, carrots etc. Carotenoids carbonated drinks (Namazkar et al., 2013) [12].
are a very important colouring additives used in food industry.
It has been found a large number of microbes produce 2.7 Violacein
Zeaxanthin, astaxanthin, canthaxanthin, Beta carotene, which Violacein is a naturally-occurring bis-indole pigment with
are types of carotenoids. So these compounds if extracted can anti biotic properties. It is basically violet-blue colour
be used as a food grade Biocolourant. pigment. Due to its hue, it has the ability to replace several
lethal synthetic colours such as FD&C Blue No2 which is
2.3 Zeaxanthin extensively used in baked goods, cereals, snack foods, ice
Zeaxanthin generally is a carotenoid alcohol which is found in cream, confections, and yogurt. Violacein is generally
nature. It is basically a type of Xanthophylls. This pigment regarded as bacteria pigment as it is produced by huge
gives paprika, corn, wolf berries its yellow orange number of bacteria. Some of the sources are
characteristics colour. Zeaxanthin breaks down to form Chromobacterium violaceum, Collimonas sp.,
picrocrocin and safranal (Yeum et al., 2002) [21]. These two Pseudoalteromonas sp. etc. Research and development
pigments give Saffron its taste, aroma and colour. Zeaxanthin formass production as a food grade biocolourant is underway.
is generally a bacterial pigment. It can be found in bacteria As of now, Violacein is only used in textile industry for
such as Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus, Corynebacterium dying.
michigannise, Flavobacterium sp etc. Hence on extraction can
be easily used as a biocolourants. In the market, Zeaxanthin is 2.8 Indigoidine
code named E161h as a food additive (Van et al., 2000) [19]. Indigoidine is an organic compound of the group of
Azaquinones. It is a blue colour pigment which is formed by
2.4 Astaxanthin some bacterial stains. It has the ability to replace artificial
Astaxanthin, classified as Xanthophylls, is a keto Carotenoid. food colourant such as FD&C Blue NO 1 and 2 Is used
It is a lipid soluble pigment. Astaxanthin is a reddish-orange extensively baked goods, cereals, snack foods, ice cream,
pigment. Synthetically developed Astaxanthin have been in confections an yogurt. Some of the sources of bacteria from
use for developing the pink hue in farm cultivated Salmon and which Indigoidine is extracted are Corynebacterium
poultry eggs for a long time. But now days, Astaxanthin insidiosum, Eschericha coli, Streptomyces chromofuscus etc.
produced by microorganisms have been commercialized and
applied in the colouration of beverages, dairy products, and 2.9 Anthocyanins
meats (Del Campo et al., 2000) [1]. Astaxanthin can be used as As a member of the flavonoid group of polyphenols,
a food colour is a main carotenoid pigment found in red anthocyanins are important chemicals in the plant kingdom as
yeast, Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous (Zheng et al., 2006). pigments, antioxidants, and antimicrobials (Zha et al., 2017)
[22]
The yeast, Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous, and microalga, . Anthocyanins are found in many food plants such as
Haematococcus pluvialis are currently used for the large-scale blueberry, raspberry, black rice, black soybean etc.
cultivation of astaxanthin. Some bacterial Sources include Anthocyanins till now mainly are produced by extraction and
Paracoccus marcusii, Paracoccus carotinifaciens, purification from fruits, flowers, and other tissues of plants.
Agrobacterium aurantiacum etc. Although till now bacterial But Anthocyanins extracted from plant sources exist as
sources are not used for production of Astaxanthin. heterogeneous mixture of multiple types of molecules with

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diverse chemical structures. The production of this pigment is color (Rao et al., 2017) [14]. E. coli, Bacillus subtilis,
neither stable nor sustainable due to varied productivity of Pseudomonas putida, Corynebacterium glutamicum, Pichia
plants. But pigment from micro organism sources provides pastoris are some of the organisms used for this technique.
sustainable ways for meeting the industry demand. It has been Thus this technique has made genetically engineering the
shown that the metabolically engineered strain of E. coli is production of pigments very cost effective and industrially
able to produce Anthocyanin. Research is still going on for viable. Thus the development and using tailor-made
production of this pigment from other modified bacteria. recombinants for making food grade pigment is a reality.
More research is being conducted for developing more cost
3. Challenges faced effective techniques and developing and modifying microbes
Pigments extracted from micro organisms can be a very good to make Biocolour extracted from microbial sources
source of bio colur. Now the raw material i.e. the micro commercially successful. For stability new techniques such as
organisms can be found in uncountable numbers. Even these micro encapsulation, Nano encapsulation and nano
microbes can be easily cultivated and the growth time is very formulation can be applied.
less. But the real challenge lies in extraction of pigments from
these microbes. Different extraction techniques that are used 5. Health benefits of using Biocolours extracted from
have high cost. Stabilization of these pigments along with the micro organisms
side effect of these pigments is a great challenge. Microbial Biocolours boasts of many bio logical properties which are
pigments have a weaker tinctorial strength and may react on good for body’s health. Most pigments contain polyphenols
different food matrices, causing undesirable flavors and odors which are antioxidants. Microbial pigments like violacein,
(Durán et al., 2016) [4]. It has been observed that biocolourants carotenoids, anthocyanins, and Naphthoquinone have been
are sensitive to factors such as pH, temperature, UV, oxygen, shown to be potent antioxidants agents (Sen et al., 2019) [15].
heat etc. which can cause colour loss and lessen the shelf life. Many pigments showed anti microbial properties. A pigment
Some pigments are sensitive to metal ions, proteins or other obtained from an endophytic fungus was shown to be more
organic compound. One example is that of vitamin C which potent than the commercially available antibiotic
will enhance the stability of beverage products, which are Streptomycin agents (Sen et al., 2019) [15]. Bacteria such as
colored with carotenoids like beta-carotene and paprika Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella
oleoresin, but the same vitamin will cause the degradation of typhi and Vibrio cholera can be countered using this pigment.
anthocyanin. Many fungal pigments are prohibited as natural Violacein has also shown anti microbial tendencies such as
colorants due to the presence of mycotoxins (Sen et al., 2019) inhibition and even being able to kill bacteria. Aditionally
[15]
. Thus there are many hurdles in development of biocolours these microbial pigments which also has the anti microbial
from micro organism. property can be used as novel antibiotic compounds against
multi drug resistant microbial stains. In number of studies,
4. Advance Technologies used & solutions to the Anti cancer properties of biocolours extracted from microbes
challenges faced are being reported. These pigments can destroy cancer cells.
Biocolours which are developed from plant sources are Scytonemin which is a green-yellow pigment, produced by
expensive due to both the method of extraction and the the aquatic cyano bacteria, inhibits the action of the cell cycle
limited raw resources. Micro organisms can serve as the regulatory protein kinase, thereby showing an anti
alternative resource effectively due to their availability, ease proliferative effect (Stevenson et al., 2002) [17]. Anthocyanins
of cultivation and growth time thus bringing down the help to suppress neuro inflammation, neuro degradation and
production cost. So the basic idea is to bring microbial brain aging by blocking interleukin-1b, tumor necrosis factor
pigments out of petri-plates and on to the market (Frisvad et a, and nuclear factor-kb (Tsuda et al., 2012) [18]. Many other
al., 2004; Dufossé et al., 2018) [5, 2]. Many new technologies pigments such as Astaxanthin, Canthaxanthin, Lycopene,
such as Strain Development and Fermentation which is Monascorubramin, Riboflavin, Rubropunctatin, β-carotene,
basically using a fermentation tank for large scale pigment Torularhodin, etc extracted from microbes are anti cancer,
production and strain development by random mutagenesis anti microbial in nature and show’s hosts of many different
and multiple selection rounds for cost effective and biological properties beneficial to human. Prodigiosin is
industrially viable production process is a good production known to have antibacterial, anti-malarial, antineoplastic and
technique. The main challenge faced is the extraction of these antibiotic activity (Shaikh et al., 2016; Venil et al., 2013) [16,
20]
pigments from microbes. The traditional method of separation .
and recovery of pigment is costly. Extraction using organic
solvents is complicated and time consuming process. More 6. Conclusion and future perspective
over the yield of pigment is low. The new technique of using Nature is rich in colour and also the source of colour. Micro
non-ionic adsorption resins for extraction is very much cost organisms being one of the sources and the innumerable
effective and the product yield is more. Smarter Screening microbes are found. Food Grade biocolours extracted from, in
Methods is a newly advanced method developed for quick coming years, has the potential to commercially replace
detection of microbial pigment. HPLC, mass spectrometry, artificial colour with shifting of market. The impact of them
LCMS, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and UV-VIS will not only be beneficial to us human but also for the
spectra, handheld Raman Spectrophotometer are the environment. The pollution level by harmful chemicals will
instruments applied in this technique. Metabolic engineering decrease. Thus more research and development is underway
of microbes i.e. the cloning of genes responsible for pigment to fully utilize these microbes for the benefit of the human.
biosynthesis has enabled overproduction of these pigments by Current range of bio colours are small but research is
gene manipulations. Pigment biosynthetic pathways have underway for expanding the range with the aim of replacing
been extensively studied and engineered to overproduce a artificial colour from the market as a whole while at the same
pigment and to change the pigments' molecular structure and time exploiting the beneficial properties of these pigments.

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Table 1: List of pigment producing microorganisms (Malik et al., 2012; Lebeau et al., 2017)
Microorganism(s) Pigments/Molecule Colour/appearance
Bacteria
Agrobacterium aurantiacum Astaxanthin Pink-red
Paracoccus carotinifaciens Astaxanthin Pink-red
Bradyrhizobium sp. Canthaxanthin Dark- red
Flavobacterium sp., Paracoccus zeaxanthinifaciens Zeaxanthin yellow
Corynebacterium insidiosum Indigoidine Blue
Rugamonas rubra, Streptoverticillium rubrireticuli, Vibrio gaogenes, Alteromonas rubra Prodigiosin Red
Rhodococcus maris Bluish- red
Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous Astaxanthin Pink -red
Haloferax alexandrinus Canthaxanthin Dark Red
Staphylococcus aureus Staphyloxanthin Zeaxanthin Golden Yellow
Chromobacterium violaceum Violacein Purple
Serratia marcescens, Serratia rubidaea, Prodigiosin Red
Pseudomonas aeruginosa Pyocyanin Blue-green
Xanthomonas oryzae Xanthomonadin Yellow
Janthinobacterium lividum Violacein Purple
Algae
Dunaliella salina β-carotene Red
Chlorococcum Lutein
Hematococcus Canthaxanthin
Fungi
Blakeslea trispora β -carotene Cream
Fusarium sporotrichioides Lycopene Red
Haematococcus pluvialis Astaxanthin Red
Monascorubramin
Monascus sp. Red Orange
Rubropunctatin
Monascus purpureus Monascin Ankaflavin Red-yellow
Monascus roseus Canthaxanthin Orange-Pink
Monascus sp. Ankaflavin Yellow
Penicillium oxalicum Anthraquinone Red
Blakeslea trispora Lycopene Red
Cordyceps unilateralis Naphtoquinone Deep blood-red
Ashbya gossypi Riboflavin Yellow
Mucor circinelloides, Neurospora crassa and Phycomyces blakesleeanus β-carotene Yellow-orange
Pacilomyces farinosus Anthraquinone Red
Yeast
Cryptococus sp. Red
Saccharomyces neoformans var. nigricans Melanin black
Phaffia rhodozyma Astaxanthin Pink-red
Rhodotorula sp. Rhodotorula glutinis Torularhodin Orange-red

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