Abstract
The food and pharmaceutical industries are searching for natural colour alternatives as required by consumers. Over the last decades, fungi have emerged as producers of natural pigments. In this paper, five filamentous fungi; Penicillium multicolour, P. canescens, P. herquie, Talaromyces verruculosus and Fusarium solani isolated from soil and producing orange, green, yellow, red and brown pigments, respectively, when cultured on a mixture of green waste and whey were tested. The culture media with varying pH (4.0, 7.0 and 9.0) were incubated at 25 °C for 14 days under submerged and solid-state fermentation conditions. Optimal conditions for pigment production were recorded at pH 7.0 and 9.0 while lower biomass and pigment intensities were observed at pH 4.0. The mycelial biomass and pigment intensities were significantly higher for solid-state fermentation (0.06–2.50 g/L and 3.78–4.00 AU) compared to submerged fermentation (0.220–0.470 g/L and 0.295–3.466 AU). The pigment intensities were corroborated by lower L* values with increasing pH. The λmax values for the pigments were all in the UV region. Finally, this study demonstrated the feasibility of pigment production using green waste:whey cocktails (3:2). For higher biomass and intense pigment production, solid-state fermentation may be a possible strategy for scaling up in manufacturing industries.
Highlights
Fungi play an important role in the stability of terrestrial ecosystems, by acting as decomposers, recyclers and suppliers of nutrients [1,2]
A total of 14 pigmented fungi were obtained and identified at the species level. These fungi belonged to six genera i.e., Penicillium, Fusarium, Talaromyces, Wojnowiciella, Epicoccum and Phoma
All pigmented fungi were isolated from soil indicating that undisturbed soils can be a valuable source for the isolation of organisms with biological importance
Summary
Fungi play an important role in the stability of terrestrial ecosystems, by acting as decomposers, recyclers and suppliers of nutrients [1,2]. They can be divided into three distinct substratum including saprobionts (saprophytes), parasites and symbiotic fungi [3]. Considerable attention has been given to filamentous fungi able to produce colours of various shades including yellow, red, orange and green These pigments fall in the substratum of melanin, carotenoids or polyketides, with the polyketides instituting a larger portion of pigments normally produced by filamentous fungi [5,6]. They serve different physiological and ecological functions such as the protection (e.g., melanin) of the fungi against environmental stress [6], shielding from lethal oxidising radiation (e.g., carotenes) and as cofactors in enzyme catalysis (e.g., flavins) [7]
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