Vadalà Rossella, Di Salvo Eleonora, De Maria Laura, Lo Vecchio Giovanna, Bartolomeo Giovanni, De Pasquale Rita, Genovese Claudia, Cicero Nicola, Costa Rosaria
Department of Biomedical Dental Morphological and Functional Imaging Sciences, University of Messina, 98100 Messina, Italy.
National Research Council, Institute for Agricultural and Forest Systems in the Mediterranean, 95128 Catania, Italy.
Foods. 2025 Mar 31;14(7):1232. doi: 10.3390/foods14071232.
Natural astaxanthin is a bioactive with high antioxidant power, widely suitable for many applications. This study explores the potential of leftover food as a sustainable and low-cost substrate for producing astaxanthin via direct fermentation using . The pretreated and characterized raw materials were fermented in a lab-scale bioreactor under optimized process conditions. The entire process (168 h) was monitored in terms of reducing sugar consumption, yield, and productivity of astaxanthin. The implemented experimental plan achieved high astaxanthin yield and producticity, namely, 230 mg·L and ~1.6 mg·L·h, which were attained at 150 h, respectively, with a substrate consumption of around 90% for all samples. The natural astaxanthin obtained showed interesting antioxidant activity, exhibiting a radical scavenging activity of more than 65%, which was evaluated with a DPPH assay. This process not only offers a promising solution for leftover food valorization but also provides a sustainable approach to producing bioactive compounds with significant health value, paving the way for further industrial applications in food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic sectors.
天然虾青素是一种具有高抗氧化能力的生物活性物质，广泛适用于许多应用。本研究探索了剩余食物作为可持续且低成本底物，通过使用……进行直接发酵来生产虾青素的潜力。对预处理并表征的原材料在实验室规模的生物反应器中于优化的工艺条件下进行发酵。在整个过程（168小时）中监测了还原糖消耗、虾青素产量和生产率。所实施的实验方案实现了较高的虾青素产量和生产率，即在150小时时分别达到230毫克·升和约1.6毫克·升·小时，所有样品的底物消耗约为90%。所获得的天然虾青素表现出有趣的抗氧化活性，通过DPPH测定法评估，其自由基清除活性超过65%。该过程不仅为剩余食物的增值提供了一个有前景的解决方案，还为生产具有重要健康价值的生物活性化合物提供了一种可持续方法，为在食品、制药和化妆品行业的进一步工业应用铺平了道路。
