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Indigo production goes green: a review on opportunities and challenges of fermentative production

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Abstract

Indigo is a widely used dye in various industries, such as textile, cosmetics, and food. However, traditional methods of indigo extraction and processing are associated with environmental and economic challenges. Fermentative production of indigo using microbial strains has emerged as a promising alternative that offers sustainability and cost-effectiveness. This review article provides a critical overview of microbial diversity, metabolic pathways, fermentation strategies, and genetic engineering approaches for fermentative indigo production. The advantages and limitations of different indigo production systems and a critique of the current understanding of indigo biosynthesis are discussed. Finally, the potential application of indigo in other sectors is also discussed. Overall, fermentative production of indigo offers a sustainable and bio-based alternative to synthetic methods and has the potential to contribute to the development of sustainable and circular biomanufacturing.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available upon request from the corresponding author. We are committed to ensuring the transparency and reproducibility of our research, and we welcome inquiries regarding access to the data used in this study.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the KU Research Professor Program of Konkuk University, Seoul, South Korea. This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF-2022R1A2C2003138, NRF-2022M3I3A1082545), and the R&D Program of MOTIE/KEIT (Grant No. 20009508 and 20014350).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Medical and Allied Sciences, GD Goenka University, Gurugram, Haryana, 122103, India

    Neha Chandel

  2. Department of Genomic Medicine, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Bharat Bhushan Singh

  3. Center for Inflammatory and Infectious Diseases, Texas A&M Health Science Center, Institute of Bioscience and Technology, Houston, TX, USA

    Chetna Dureja

  4. Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea

    Yung-Hun Yang & Shashi Kant Bhatia

  5. Institute for Ubiquitous Information Technology and Applications, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea

    Yung-Hun Yang & Shashi Kant Bhatia

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Contributions

Neha Chandel: Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing, Bharat Bhushan Singh: Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing, Chetna Dureja: Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing, Yung-Hun Yang: Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing, Shashi Kant Bhatia: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Methodology; Software; Validation; Visualization; Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing.

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Chandel, N., Singh, B.B., Dureja, C. et al. Indigo production goes green: a review on opportunities and challenges of fermentative production. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 40, 62 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-023-03871-2

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