Abstract
The fungal kingdom has been widely studied as a source of bioactive compounds of interest to the pharmaceutical and food industry. This paper studies the production of natural red pigments by Fusarium solani BRM054066 in the submerged fermentation system, using Doehlert experimental design to determine optimal cultivation conditions. The chemical composition of the red pigment was determined by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled to Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-MS). Antioxidant activity was assessed by the ability to sequester of free radical DPPH. In the analysis of anti-inflammatory activity, murine peritoneal macrophages activated by LPS were used, and the gene expression of TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-10 and IL-17 was determined using qPCR. As a result, it was found that agitation at 200 rpm and glucose concentration ≥ 20 g/L promote the best results in the production of red pigment. The chemical compounds identified were two naphthoquinones, fusarubin and dihydrofusarubin, and an anthraquinone, a bostrycoidin, being fusarubin the majority compound. The red pigment showed antioxidant activity by scavenge 50% of the DPPH radical, in a concentration of 24 µg/mL. The pigment also showed an effective anti-inflammatory capacity by reducing the overexpression of the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 and promoting the production of anti-inflammatory IL-10 and IL-17, in murine macrophages activated by LPS (p < 0.05). According to the results, the fungus F. solani BRM054066, under optimized conditions of cultivation, proved to be a promising source of biologically active natural pigments with wide industrial applicability.
Highlights
The search for natural pigments as an alternative to potentially harmful synthetic dyes, especially for applications in the food, cosmetic and textile industries has dramatically increased (Sivakumar et al 2009)
There are a number of microorganisms that have the ability to produce pigments in high yields, including such species as Monascus, Paecilomyces, Serratia, Cordyceps, Streptomyces and yellow–red and blue compounds produced by Penicillium herquei and Penicillium atrovenetum (Gunasekaran and Poorniammal 2008)
Fusarium ssp. are microorganisms that cause plant diseases and some species have complex pigmentation, such as F. graminearum, which has several pigments of similar colors, ranging from yellow and orange to red. Some of these compounds have already been identified, such as aurofusarin of the naphtoquinone class, which has a golden yellow color, carotenoids with yellow, orange and red colors, rubrofusarin, of red color, which belongs to the class of naphthopyrones and resembles the aurofusarin (Cambaza 2018), in addition to ′′5-deoxybostrycoidin-based melanin′′, of a nature related to fusarubins (Frandsen et al 2016)
Summary
The search for natural pigments as an alternative to potentially harmful synthetic dyes, especially for applications in the food, cosmetic and textile industries has dramatically increased (Sivakumar et al 2009). The major challenge of replacing synthetic dyes with natural ones, especially those extracted from plants such as tannins, flavonoids, and quinonoids, is the high cost of production (Kasiri and Safapour 2013). In this regard, a submerged culture of microorganisms appears as an efficient biotechnological tool for the production of natural pigments. A submerged culture of microorganisms appears as an efficient biotechnological tool for the production of natural pigments By means of this methodology it is possible to obtain high yields of production, in a short time and reduced space requirement, optimizing its production for industrial applicability (Manan et al 2017)
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