Abstract
Violacein is an intensely purple pigment synthesized by various genera of bacteria that has been discovered to have a wide range of interesting biological activities which range from anticarcinogenic to antibacterial. One of the hindrances for its real-life application is that the first microorganisms found to produce the compound may act as opportunistic pathogens. Here, we report the isolation and characterization of violacein from a non-pathogenic Antarctic Iodobacter strain. Its anti-microbial properties were also tested. The method proposed here for the purification of violacein shows high yields, indicating that this Antarctic microorganism could be a valuable source for this important pigment. This is the first characterization of violacein from an Antarctic Iodobacter strain and here we also present a viable method to obtain this pigment for potential biotechnological applications.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aruldass CA, Rubiyatno R, Venil CK, Ahmad WA (2015) Violet pigment production from liquid pineapple waste by Chromobacterium violaceum UTM5 and evaluation of its bioactivity. RSC Adv 5(64):51524–51536. https://doi.org/10.1039/c5ra05765e
Batista JH, da Silva Neto JF (2017) Chromobacterium violaceum Pathogenicity: updates and insights from genome sequencing of novel Chromobacterium species. Front Microbiol 8:2213. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2017.02213
Bromberg N, Dreyfuss JL, Regatieri CV, Palladino MV, Durán N, Nader HB, Haun M, Justo GZ (2010) Growth inhibition and pro-apoptotic activity of violacein in Ehrlich ascites tumor. Chem Biol Interact 186(1):43–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbi.2010.04.016
Choi SY, Kim S, Lyuck S, Kim SB, Mitchell RJ (2015) High-level production of violacein by the newly isolated Duganella violaceinigra str. NI28 and its impact on Staphylococcus aureus. Sci Rep 5:15598. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep15598
Dereeper A, Guignon V, Blanc G, Audic S, Buffet S, Chevenet F, Dufayard JF, Guindon S, Lefort V, Lescot M, Claverie JM, Gascuel O (2008) Phylogeny.fr: robust phylogenetic analysis for the non-specialist. Nucleic Acids Res 36(Web Server issue):W465–W469. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkn180
Doing G, Perron GG, Jude BA (2018) Draft genome sequence of a violacein-producing Iodobacter sp. from the Hudson valley watershed. Genome Announc 6(1):e01428-17. https://doi.org/10.1128/genomea.01428-17
Durán N, Menck CF (2001) Chromobacterium violaceum: a review of pharmacological and industrial perspectives. Crit Rev Microbiol 27:201–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/20014091096747
Gómez-Gómez B, Arregui L, Serrano S, Santos A, Pérez-Corona T, Madrid Y (2019) Selenium and tellurium-based nanoparticles as interfering factors in quorum sensing-regulated processes: violacein production and bacterial biofilm formation. Metallomics. https://doi.org/10.1039/c9mt00044e(Epub ahead of print)
Hakvåg ES, Fjærvik E, Klinkenberg G, Borgos SE, Josefsen KD, Ellingsen TE, Zotchev SB (2009) Violacein-producing Collimonas sp from the sea surface microlayer of costal waters in Trøndelag, Norway. Mar Drugs 7(4):576–588. https://doi.org/10.3390/md7040576(Published online Nov 12)
Hoshino T (2011) Violacein and related tryptophan metabolites produced by Chromobacterium violaceum: biosynthetic mechanism and pathway for construction of violacein core. Appl Microbiol Biotech 91:1463–1475. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3468-z
Jiang P, Wang H, Xiao S et al (2012) Pathway redesign for deoxyviolacein biosynthesis in Citrobacter freundii and characterization of this pigment. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 94:1521. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-012-3960-0
Kothari V, Sharma S, Padia D (2017) Recent research advances on Chromobacterium violaceum, Asian Pac. J Trop Med 10:744–752. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apjtm.2017.07.022
Lu Y et al (2009) Production of violet pigment by a newly isolated psychrotrophic bacterium from a glacier in Xinjiang, China. Biochem Eng J 43:135–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bej.2008.09.009
Mojib N, Nasti TH, Andersen DT, Attigada VR, Hoover RB, Yusuf N, Bej AK (2011) The antiproliferative function of violacein-like purple violet pigment (PVP) from an Antarctic Janthinobacterium sp. Ant5-2 in UV-induced 2237 fibrosarcoma. Int J Dermatol 50:1223–1233. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-4632.2010.04825.x
Nakamura Y, Sawada T, Morita Y, Tamiya E (2002) Isolation of a psychrotrophic bacterium from the organic residue of a water tank keeping rainbow trout and antibacterial effect of violet pigment produced from the strain. Biochem Eng J 12:79–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1369-703X(02)00079-7
Reilly J, Pyne G (1927) On the pigment produced by Chromobacterium violaceum. Biochem J 21:1059–1064
Rodrigues AL, Göcke Y, Bolten C, Brock NL, Dickschat JS, Wittmann C (2012) Microbial production of the drugs violacein and deoxyviolacein: analytical development and strain comparison. Biotechnol Lett 34:717–720. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-011-0827-x
Sasidharan A, Sasidharan NK, Amma DB, Vasu RK, Nataraja AV, Bhaskaran K (2015) Antifungal activity of violacein purified from a novel strain of Chromobacterium sp. NIIST (MTCC 5522). J Microbiol 10:694–701. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-015-5173-6
Shankar S, Venkatraman R, Aravind S (2014) Synergistic antimicrobial profiling of violacein with commercial antibiotics against pathogenic microorganisms. Pharm Biol 52(1):86–90. https://doi.org/10.3109/13880209.2013.815634
Smith HJ, Foreman CM, Akiyama T, Franklin MJ, Devitt NP, Ramaraj T (2016) Genome sequence of Janthinobacterium sp. CG23_2, a violacein-producing isolate from an Antarctic supraglacial stream. Genome Announc 4:e01468-15. https://doi.org/10.1128/genomeA.01468-15
Timmermans ML, Picott KJ, Ucciferri L, Ross AC (2019) Culturing marine bacteria from the genus Pseudoalteromonas on a cotton scaffold alters secondary metabolite production. Microbiologyopen 8(5):e00724. https://doi.org/10.1002/mbo3.724
Wang HS et al (2009) Optimization of culture conditions for violacein production by a new strain of Duganella sp B2. Biochem Eng J 44:119–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bej.2008.11.008
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) and project Conicyt, PIA ACT1412.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
We have no competing interests to declare.
Additional information
Communicated by M. Moracci.
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This manuscript is part of a special issue of Extremophiles journal for the 12th International Congress of Extremophiles (Extremophiles 2018) that was held on 16–20 September 2018 in Ischia, Naples, Italy.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Atalah, J., Blamey, L., Muñoz-Ibacache, S. et al. Isolation and characterization of violacein from an Antarctic Iodobacter: a non-pathogenic psychrotolerant microorganism. Extremophiles 24, 43–52 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-019-01111-w
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-019-01111-w