الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Non-toxicity and biodegradability of natural pigments give them an attractive property for human use. Pigmented bacteria excrete pigments as secondary metabolites when exposed to stress. The bacterial pigments have many features giving them as natural pigments many industrial uses over the synthetic pigments such as simple techniques of culturing, extraction and scaling up make them preferable in pharmaceutical, textile, cosmetics and food industries. Also they have antimicrobial, anticancer and antioxidant properties. In the present study, yellow pigmented bacteria were isolated from soil sample collected from the farm of Mansoura university campus on L.B media. The biochemical and molecular data exposed the identification of this isolate as Micrococcus alovera. The yellow pigment secreted in the medium was extracted in methanol, and then characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic techniques. The spectroscopic profile presented the characteristic peaks of carotenoid pigment. The isolated carotenoid pigment of Micrococcus alovera showed a significant antioxidant activity (IC50 of 0.355 mg/ml). In conclusion, Micrococcus alovera is considered as a good source of yellow carotene pigment that needs further analysis for finding more applications. |