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Review
. 2022 Mar 25;14(7):1339.
doi: 10.3390/polym14071339.

Natural Melanin: Current Trends, and Future Approaches, with Especial Reference to Microbial Source

Noura El-Ahmady El-Naggar  1 , WesamEldin I A Saber  2
Affiliations
Review

Natural Melanin: Current Trends, and Future Approaches, with Especial Reference to Microbial Source

Noura El-Ahmady El-Naggar et al. Polymers (Basel). .

Abstract

Melanin is a universal natural dark polymeric pigment, arising in microorganisms, animals, and plants. There is a couple of pieces of literature on melanin, each focusing on a different issue, the goal of the present review is to focus on microbial melanin. It has numerous benefits with very few drawbacks. The current situation and expected trends are discussed. Intriguing, numerous studies have provoked a serious necessity for a comprehensive assessment of microbial melanin pigments. So that, such review would help scholars from diverse backgrounds to realize the importance of melanin pigments isolated from microorganisms, with this aim in mind, information, and hypothesis from this review could be the paradigm for studies on melanin in the next era.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; biosynthesis; detection; fermentation; microbial melanin; optimization; recombinant microbes.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Diagrammatic scheme of the various topics covered by the current review.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mode of action of melanin as an antioxidant.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Part of the structural formula of the most common types of melanins; eumelanin (A), and pheomelanin (B).
Figure 4
Figure 4
The general procedure of microbial melanin production. The graph was designed based on the data extracted from a previous study.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Various methods for characterization of melanin. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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