Abstract
Colors with their attractive appeal have been an integral part of human lives and the easy cascade of chemical catalysis enables fast, bulk production of these synthetic colorants with low costs. However, the resulting hazardous impacts on the environment and human health has stimulated an interest in natural pigments as a safe and ecologically clean alternative. Amidst sources of natural producers, the microbes with their diversity, ease of all-season production and peculiar bioactivities are attractive entities for industrial production of these marketable natural colorants. Further, in line with circular bioeconomy and environmentally clean technologies, the use of agro-industrial wastes as feedstocks for carrying out the microbial transformations paves way for sustainable and cost-effective production of these valuable secondary metabolites with simultaneous waste management. The present review aims to comprehensively cover the current green workflow of microbial colorant production by encompassing the potency of waste feedstocks and fermentation technologies. The commercially important pigments viz. astaxanthin, prodigiosin, canthaxanthin, lycopene, and β-carotene produced by native and engineered bacterial, fungal, or yeast strains have been elaborately discussed with their versatile applications in food, pharmaceuticals, textiles, cosmetics, etc. The limitations and their economic viability to meet the future market demands have been envisaged. The most recent advances in various molecular approaches to develop engineered microbiological systems for enhanced pigment production have been included to provide new perspectives to this burgeoning field of research.
Highlights
Color has been a part of human lives for centuries and has been an integral component to increase the desirability of any product
The depleting fossil reserves, increasing population, waste generation, carbon footprint, and resulting detrimental environmental consequences are driving the shift from linear to closed-loop bioeconomy
Though the utilization of these cheap and renewable feedstocks is enticing, the real-time scaled up production and downstream processing of microbial pigments has many challenges
Summary
Color has been a part of human lives for centuries and has been an integral component to increase the desirability of any product. The agro-industrial residues have the potential to serve as ideal substrates for microbial pigment production. The recent perspectives on different molecular, genetic, or metabolic approaches for creating engineered strains with a high titer of stable pigment production have been appraised.
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