Abstract
Carotenoids are a class of diverse pigments with important biological roles such as light capture and antioxidative activities. Many novel carotenoids have been isolated from marine organisms to date and have shown various utilizations as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. In this review, we summarize the pathways and enzymes of carotenoid synthesis and discuss various modifications of marine carotenoids. The advances in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology for carotenoid production are also reviewed, in hopes that this review will promote the exploration of marine carotenoid for their utilizations.
Highlights
Carotenoids are a class of naturally occurring pigments originated in the chloroplasts and chromoplasts of plants, algae and some photosynthetic microorganisms [1,2,3,4]
We describe diverse and novel carotenoids from marine resources and summarize recent progresses in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering which provide great application potential for marine carotenoids
Biosynthetic routes to carotenoids begin with the basic building blocks isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) and its isomer dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMAPP), carotenoids are very diverse in chemical structure
Summary
Carotenoids are a class of naturally occurring pigments originated in the chloroplasts and chromoplasts of plants, algae and some photosynthetic microorganisms [1,2,3,4]. As of 2004, over 750 known carotenoids, which can be divided into xanthophylls (containing oxygen) and carotenes (pure hydrocarbons), have been isolated from natural sources [5] These structurally diverse pigments play important biological roles in light capture, protection of cells from the damaging effects of free radicals, and synthesis of many hormones as a precursor [6,7,8,9,10]. With the advent of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, many engineering tools including vectors, genetic controllers, and enzyme designing, have been developed for heterologous production of valuable chemicals. These tools create new opportunities for exploring marine carotenoids for food and health industries. We describe diverse and novel carotenoids from marine resources and summarize recent progresses in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering which provide great application potential for marine carotenoids
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