Carotenoids from Cyanobacteria: Biotechnological Potential and Optimization Strategies

• Tipo: Outra Publicação em Revista Científica Internacional
• Data: 2021

Autores

Pagels, F (Autor) Outra; Vitor Vasconcelos (Autor) FCUP; Catarina Guedes, AC (Autor) FCUP

Revista

Título: Biomolecules

Vol. 11

ISSN: 2218-273X

Editora: MDPI

Indexação

ISI Web of Knowledge - 34 Citações

Scopus - 41 Citações

Outras Informações

ID Authenticus: P-00T-YPT

DOI: 10.3390/biom11050735

Abstract (EN): Carotenoids are tetraterpenoids molecules present in all photosynthetic organisms, responsible for better light-harvesting and energy dissipation in photosynthesis. In cyanobacteria, the biosynthetic pathway of carotenoids is well described, and apart from the more common compounds (e.g., beta-carotene, zeaxanthin, and echinenone), specific carotenoids can also be found, such as myxoxanthophyll. Moreover, cyanobacteria have a protein complex called orange carotenoid protein (OCP) as a mechanism of photoprotection. Although cyanobacteria are not the organism of choice for the industrial production of carotenoids, the optimisation of their production and the evaluation of their bioactive capacity demonstrate that these organisms may indeed be a potential candidate for future pigment production in a more environmentally friendly and sustainable approach of biorefinery. Carotenoids-rich extracts are described as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-tumoral agents and are proposed for feed and cosmetical industries. Thus, several strategies for the optimisation of a cyanobacteria-based bioprocess for the obtention of pigments were described. This review aims to give an overview of carotenoids from cyanobacteria not only in terms of their chemistry but also in terms of their biotechnological applicability and the advances and the challenges in the production of such compounds.

Idioma: Inglês

Tipo (Avaliação Docente): Científica

Nº de páginas: 21