Biotechnological Activities and Applications of Bacterial Pigments Violacein and Prodigiosin Seong Yeol Choi1†, Sungbin Lim1†, Kyoung-Hye Yoon2*, Jin I
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Choi et al. Journal of Biological Engineering (2021) 15:10 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13036-021-00262-9 REVIEW Open Access Biotechnological Activities and Applications of Bacterial Pigments Violacein and Prodigiosin Seong Yeol Choi1†, Sungbin Lim1†, Kyoung-hye Yoon2*, Jin I. Lee3* and Robert J. Mitchell1* Abstract In this review, we discuss violacein and prodigiosin, two chromogenic bacterial secondary metabolites that have diverse biological activities. Although both compounds were “discovered” more than seven decades ago, interest into their biological applications has grown in the last two decades, particularly driven by their antimicrobial and anticancer properties. These topics will be discussed in the first half of this review. The latter half delves into the current efforts of groups to produce these two compounds. This includes in both their native bacterial hosts and heterogeneously in other bacterial hosts, including discussing some of the caveats related to the yields reported in the literature, and some of the synthetic biology techniques employed in this pursuit. Keywords: Prodigiosin, Violacein, Antibacterial, Anticancer, Secondary Metabolite, Production, Synthetic Biology Introduction compound is their cost, which range from $360 to $760 Bacterial strains are capable of producing many different per milligram [4]. Within this review, therefore, discus- secondary metabolites, including anti-cancer and anti- sion will be given primarily to the biological activities of biotic drugs. Here, we discuss two such compounds that these compounds, focusing on ecological and medical are gaining interest due to their diverse biological activ- considerations of both violacein and prodigiosin, as well ities, namely violacein and prodigiosin. Both of these as current methods to over-produce these remarkable compounds are synthesized by Gram-negative hosts and compounds. have been shown in studies from a wide berth of groups to possess important biological activities, including as Violacein and Prodigiosin – Hydrophobic Bacterial potent antibiotics against multidrug resistant pathogens. Chromogenic Pigments Although both compounds were “discovered” nearly a th Prodigiosin and violacein are both colorful secondary century ago in the mid-20 century [1–3], their bio- metabolites, a trait that makes isolating and identify- logical activities are still being studied to this day. How- ing the bacterial strains that produce these com- ever, one critical factor limiting research with either pounds in sufficient quantities easier. As shown in * Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected]; Fig. 1, violacein is a purple-hued bacterial pigment. [email protected] The fact that this compound is produced by a range † Seong Yeol Choi and Sungbin Lim contributed equally to this work. of natural bacterial strains [5–8], including Chromo- 2Department of Physiology, Mitohormesis Research Center, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju, Gangwon-do, South Korea bacterium [9]andJanthinobacterium [10], and in a 3Division of Biological Science and Technology, College of Science and wide-array of environmental locales, including the Technology, Yonsei University, Mirae Campus, Wonju, Gangwon-do, South deep seas [11], rivers [9, 12], agricultural and forest Korea 1School of Life Sciences, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology soils [8, 13, 14], within polar and alpine glacial (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, South Korea regions [7, 15, 16],andevenontheleavesofwhite © The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Choi et al. Journal of Biological Engineering (2021) 15:10 Page 2 of 16 Fig. 1 Violacein and prodigiosin, showing the chemical structure and the colored phenotypes of the bacterial strains that produce these compounds clover [17] and the skin of amphibians [18], all sug- aerogenes IAM1183 and Citrobacter freundii ACCC gest the production of violacein should be relatively 05411, with no clear detriment to the growth or viability advantageous for the host. However, the octanol- of these strains [59–62] supports this further. However, water partitioning coefficient (Log POW) for violacein individual studies from some groups recently claim vio- is 3.34 [19, 20], classifying this compound as highly lacein exhibits low MIC or growth inhibitory activities hydrophobic and suggesting it is not readily secreted with Gram-negative strains [63–65]. Given the histor- by the host into the surrounding environment. icity and wide range of reports suggesting otherwise, the Similarly, prodigiosin is vibrant red in color (Fig. 1) veracity of these studies needs to be demonstrated inde- and is produced by a number of different Gram-negative pendently by other research groups. and Gram-positive bacterial strains, including Serratia In contrast, the activity of violacein against many dif- marcescens [21] and Streptomyces. As a compound, pro- ferent Gram-positive bacterial strains (Table 1), includ- digiosin is a member of the prodiginines, a group of che- ing Staphylococcus, Bacillus and Streptococcus [3, 40], is micals with the same parent nucleus but differing side well established. Despite this, its spectrum does not groups. For this review, emphasis will be given primarily extend to all Gram-positive strains. For instance, Entero- to prodigiosin as this is the most extensively studied coccus faecalis ATCC 29212 was not affected by the compound within this group. When compared with addition of violacein [66], while Corynebacterium gluta- violacein, prodigiosin is even more hydrophobic, with a micum ATCC 21850 was genetically engineered to Log POW of 5.16 [22]. produce violacein [67]. It also exhibits antibiotic activ- ities against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. smeg- Violacein and Prodigiosin as Antimicrobials matis, which are acid-fast microbes, and the Gram- The antimicrobial activities of these two compounds variable Micrococcus luteus [7, 68]. have been extensively studied (Tables 1 and 2), particu- Stemming from its recognized activities against Gram- larly for violacein. It is historically recognized that very positive strains, many recent studies have evaluated the few Gram-negative bacteria are susceptible to violacein, use of violacein against antibiotic-resistant strains of S. data that is supported by independent groups in many aureus [8, 41, 58, 66]. For instance, the minimal inhibi- recent studies [3, 39–41, 58]. The fact that violacein has tory concentrations (MICs) for several S. aureus associ- been produced in recombinant strains of E. coli, as well ated with Bovine Mastitis were between 6.25 and 25.00 as in Salmonella typhimurium VNP20009, Enterobacter μM violacein, even though these strains displayed Choi et al. Journal of Biological Engineering (2021) 15:10 Page 3 of 16 Table 1 Prodigiosin’s antibiotic activity against microorganisms Microbe Description Reference Bacteria Bacillus cereus [23] Bacillus subtilis [24] Enterobacter cloacae [25] Escherichia coli [23, 25][26] Klebsiella aerogenes Human pathogen [25] Pseudomonas aeruginosa Human pathogen [25] Staphylococcus aureus Human pathogen [23, 25–27] Streptococcus pyogenes Human pathogen [27] Fungi Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis Amphibian pathogen [28] Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans Amphibian pathogen [28] Botrytis cinerea Plant pathogen [29] Fusarium oxysporum Plant pathogen [30] Mucor irregularis Human pathogen [31] Mycosphaerella fijiensis Plant pathogen [32] Phytophthora infestans Plant pathogen [30] Pythium myriotylum Plant pathogen [30] Rhizoctonia solani Plant pathogen [30, 33] Sclerotium rolfsii Plant pathogen [30] Virus HSV-1 Herpes [34] Protozoa Plasmodium falciparum Malaria [35, 36] Trypanosoma cruzi Parasitic euglenoids [37] Insect Aedes aegypti Yellow fever mosquito [38] Anopheles stephensi Malaria vector [38] penicillin, ampicillin and/or intermediary erythromycin into a bacterial culture, prodigiosin and violacein rapidly resistance [58]. Moreover, violacein acted synergistically insert into the membranes of the microbe and disrupt with penicillin [58], an idea that was expanded on in an- their integrity, leading to ATP and protein leakage [22, 69, other study [64]. A separate study using methicillin- 70]. Interactions between violacein and bacterial mem- resistant S. aureus (MRSA) reported MICs in basically branes were recently modeled [70], and suggested that this the same range, i.e., 7.5 to 30 μM[66], while research compound does not embed very deeply within the lipid bi- from our group found a multidrug-resistant