A blog from University of Borås

Sunday, May 14, 2017

Pigments and fungi

Do you like coloured food? Do you want the color to be natural? It could be from coloured fungi!
Fungi such as ascomycetes MonascusFusarium, Penicillium and Neurospora, are being explored as novel sources of natural pigments with biological functionality for food, feed and cosmetic applications. Such edible fungi can be used in biorefineries for the production of ethanol, animal feed and pigments from waste sources. 

We have recently published a review to gather  insights on fungal pigment production covering biosynthetic pathways and stimulatory factors (oxidative stress, light, pH, nitrogen and carbon sources, temperature, co-factors, surfactants, oxygen, tricarboxylic acid intermediates and morphology) in addition to pigment extraction, analysis and identification methods. Enjoy reading it here!