A review on Natural Dye: Gift from bacteria

Author(s): Annapurna Sahoo* and G.K. Panigrahi

Abstract

Numerous pigments have been isolated from a variety of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi and protozoa. Bacterial pigments are water soluble or insoluble; water soluble pigments are diffused in the growth medium. Chemically, bacterial pigments are pyrrole, phenazine, carotenoid, xanthophylls and quinine or quinone derivatives. Structural information on many of these compounds like quinone which are amphiphilic in nature is an indicative of a strong membrane association potential. So as Food colorants may be classified into synthetic, nature-identical, inorganic, and natural colorants. Most often, the colorants are extracted from plant material, but other sources such as insects, algae, cyanobacteria, and fungi are used as well. A Halophylic bacterium has also been reported of producing different pigments. Synthesis of polymeric pigments is also been extensively studied now a days. The molecular genetic studies of pigment synthesis present vital scope for scaling up industrial importance of useful pigmented bacteria. The main objective of this study is to use pigments from locally isolated coloured bacteria as natural dyes to replace the existing synthetic dye.

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