Production and Partial Characterization of Yellow Pigment Produced by Kocuria flava Isolate and Testing its Antioxidant and Antimicrobial activity.

Life Sciences-Biochemistry for better diagnosis and therapy

Abstract

Recently, Natural pigments produced great interest within the market and made need to find eco-friendlier and less hazardous pigments than synthetic colorants, particularly microbial pigments.   This work was undertaken with an aim of isolating pigment producing bacteria  from  air, then  production  and extraction  pigment  from  isolated  bacteria  with  antioxidant  and antimicrobial  properties  against pathogenic  microorganisms.  Bacterium  was  identified  by  morphological  characteristics  and  16S  rRNA  sequencing  as Kocuria  flava  SIF3, submitted  to GenBank  (accession  number  MN162713).  Pigment  production  was carried  out using nutrient  broth medium  (NB). Yellow pigment extracted by using methanol as solvent, showed maximum absorption spectrum (λmax) at 437 nm by UV-VIS spectroscopy and the degree of cell pigmentation was 0.472. Partial characterization of the extracted yellow pigment using UV- VIS spectroscopy and Fourier- Transform  Infrared  Spectroscopy  analysis  (FTIR)  revealed  it to be a carotenoid  which  has numerous  applications.  This novel extracted yellow  pigment  was  screened  for  antimicrobial  activity  against  pathogenic  and  antioxidant  activity.  This  particular  pigment  showed inhibitory effect against all tested microbes so it could be chosen as a broad spectrum antimicrobial agent. The maximum zone of inhibition was  (20  mm)  against  Penicillium  sp.  then  Pseudomonas  aeruginosa  (12mm).  The  yellow  pigment  was  discovered  to  have  DPPH  radical- scavenging activity with an IC50 value of 1.25mg / ml in vitro antioxidant assay. Present findings highlight the significance of yellow pigment extracted from Kocuria flava SIF3. Further purification of pigment will be useful in discovering a promising drug.