Abstract
We studied the production and the potential use of a purple-pigment produced by an Antarctic bacterial isolate. This pigment was identified as violacein, a metabolite produced by many bacterial strains and reported that it has antiproliferative activity in many cell lines. We analyzed the effect of temperature and the composition of the growth medium on pigment production, achieving the highest yield at 20 °C in Tryptic Soy Broth medium supplemented with 3.6 g/L glucose. We doubled the yield of the pigment production when the process was scaled up in a 5 L bioreactor (77 mg/L of crude pigment). The pigment was purified and identified by mass spectrometry (DI–EI–MS) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as violacein. We performed survival assays that showed that the pure pigment has antiproliferative activity and sensitize HeLa cells (cervix cell carcinoma) to cisplatin. Besides, the pigment did not show genotoxic activity in HeLa cells as found performing micronucleus assays. These results suggest that this pigment may be used as anticancer or sensitizer to cisplatin drug in cervix cancer.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Uruguayan Antarctic Institute for the logistic support during the stay in the Antarctic Base Artigas. S. Castro-Sowinski, D. Davyt, W. Martinez Lopez and J. J. Marizcurrena are members of the National Research System (SNI, Sistema Nacional de Investigadores). This work was partially supported by PEDECIBA (Programa de Desarrollo de las Ciencias Básicas). The work of DA and JJM was supported by ANII and CAP (Comisión Académica de Posgrado, UdelaR).
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Alem, D., Marizcurrena, J.J., Saravia, V. et al. Production and antiproliferative effect of violacein, a purple pigment produced by an Antarctic bacterial isolate. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 36, 120 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-020-02893-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-020-02893-4