RT Journal Article
T1 Exploring the Valuable Carotenoids for the Large-Scale Production by Marine Microorganisms
A1 Torregrosa Crespo, Javier
A1 Montero Lobato, Zaida
A1 Fuentes Cordero, Juan Luis
A1 García Galbis, Manuel Reig
A1 Garbayo Nores, Inés
A1 Vílchez Lobato, Carlos
A1 Martínez Espinosa, María Rosa
AB Carotenoids are among the most abundant natural pigments available in nature. Thesepigments have received considerable attention because of their biotechnological applications and,more importantly, due to their potential beneficial uses in human healthcare, food processing,pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. These bioactive compounds are in high demand throughout theworld; Europe and the USA are the markets where the demand for carotenoids is the highest. Thein vitro synthesis of carotenoids has sustained their large-scale production so far. However, theemerging modern standards for a healthy lifestyle and environment-friendly practices have givenrise to a search for natural biocompounds as alternatives to synthetic ones. Therefore, nowadays,biomass (vegetables, fruits, yeast and microorganisms) is being used to obtain naturally-availablecarotenoids with high antioxidant capacity and strong color, on a large scale. This is an alternative tothe in vitro synthesis of carotenoids, which is expensive and generates a large number of residues,and the compounds synthesized are sometimes not active biologically. In this context, marinebiomass has recently emerged as a natural source for both common and uncommon valuablecarotenoids. Besides, the cultivation of marine microorganisms, as well as the downstream processes,which are used to isolate the carotenoids from these microorganisms, offer several advantages overthe other approaches that have been explored previously. This review summarizes the generalproperties of the most-abundant carotenoids produced by marine microorganisms, focusing onthe genuine/rare carotenoids that exhibit interesting features useful for potential applications inbiotechnology, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and medicine.
PB MDPI
SN 1660-3397
YR 2018
FD 2018-06
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/16179
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/16179
LA eng
NO Torregrosa Crespo, J., Montero, Z., Fuentes Cordero, J., Reig García Galbis, M., Garbayo Nores, I., Vílchez Lobato, C.,  Martínez Espinosa, R. Exploring the Valuable Carotenoids for the Large-Scale Production by Marine Microorganisms. Marine Drugs, 16(6), 203.  (2018). DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/md16060203
NO This work was funded by a research grant from the MINECO Spain (CTM2013-43147-R).
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 14 jul 2026