BACTERIAL PRODUCTION OF PIGMENTS

Abstract

Pigment producing bacteria hold a promising potential to meet present-day challenges. They are preferred than other natural sources due to several reasons; produce colors of different shades, safe, fast growing, production being independent of seasons and cost effectiveness can be further enhanced by growing on low-cost substrates. Furthermore, natural pigments not only improve the marketability of the product but also add extra feathers like antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and used in textile dying. The purpose of this research was to isolate and classify pigments producing bacteria and enhance the fermentation conditions for maximum pigment yield. Moreover, evaluate the selected pigments as antioxidants, cytotoxicity, and antibacterial effects against foodborne pathogenesis, in addition, an applied experiment was designed for the use of the pigment tested in the dyeing of garments. The obtained results can be summarized as follows: 1- Forty-six local pigments producing bacterial isolates were isolated from different sources of soil (23 isolates), air (5 isolates), and food (18 isolates). Only 12 isolates produced extracellular pigments (fluorescence and blue green pigments) and 34 isolates produced intra-cellular pigments (red, brown, yellow, rose, and orange pigments). 2- Extraction of pigment using solvent extraction and ultrasonication are a significant phenomenon for opting the appropriate solvent for extracting high yields of pigments. Different solvents of ethanol, methanol, acetone, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and mixture of methanol and ethanol were used to extract the pigment from the inner cells. Ethyl acetate was more efficient than all other solvents tested in extracting most pigments and was therefore selected for further studies.