Production mechanism and biological activity of microbial pigments

Abstract:

The environmental and health problems caused by the massive use of synthetic pigments in recent years increase the demand for safe,non-toxic natural pigments.Natural pigments are mainly derived from plants and microorganisms.However,the large-scale application of plant-derived pigments is limited by the long growth cycle of plants.Compared with plants,microorganisms are easy to be cultivated on a large scale in a short time and thus microorganism-derived pigments have a broad application prospect.We systematically summarized the production mechanisms,reviewed the research progress in the antibacterial,anti-oxidation and anti-cancer activities,and put forward the opportunities and challenges in the development of microorganism-derived pigments.