As melanin has emerged as functional pigment with cosmetic, health and food applications, the demand for the pigments is expected to increase. However, the conventional sources (e.g. mushroom, hair, and wool) of melanin production entail pigments inside the substrates which requires the costly extraction procedures, leading to inappropriate scalable production. In this study, we screened 102 of fungal isolates for their ability to produce melanin in the supernatant and selected the only Amorphotheca resinae as a promising candidate. In the peptone yeast extract glucose broth, A. resinae produced the melanin rapidly during the autolysis phase of growth, reaching up 4.5 g/L within 14 days. Structural characterization of the purified melanin from A. resinae was carried out by using elemental analysis, electron paramagnetic resonance, ¹³C solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in comparison with the standard melanins. The results indicate that the structural properties of A. resinae melanin is similar to the eumelanin which has a wide range of industrial uses. For example, the purified melanin from A. resinae has the potent antioxidant activities as a result of free radical scavenging assays. Consequently, A. resinae KUC3009 can be a promising candidate for scalable production of industrially applicable melanin.

中文翻译：

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衍生自紫穗槐的黑色素色素的生产和表征。

随着黑色素已成为在化妆品，健康和食品应用中的功能性颜料，对颜料的需求有望增加。然而，黑色素生产的常规来源（例如蘑菇，毛发和羊毛）在底物内部需要颜料，这需要昂贵的提取程序，从而导致不适当的可扩展生产。在这项研究中，我们筛选了102种真菌分离物在上清液中产生黑色素的能力，并选择了唯一的紫穗槐树脂作为有希望的候选者。在蛋白yeast酵母提取物葡萄糖肉汤中，树脂曲霉在生长的自溶阶段迅速产生黑色素，在14天内达到4.5 g / L。树脂科植物精制黑色素的结构表征与标准黑色素相比，通过元素分析，电子顺磁共振，¹³ C固态核磁共振光谱和热解-气相色谱-质谱法进行了分析。结果表明，树脂科的黑色素的结构性质类似于具有广泛工业用途的直链黑色素。例如，由于自由基清除测定的结果，从树脂曲霉纯化的黑色素具有有效的抗氧化活性。因此，树脂曲霉KUC3009可能是可大规模生产工业应用黑色素的有前途的候选者。