The nature and source of astaxanthin

Jun 27
08:25

2013

David Yvon

David Yvon

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Astaxanthin was widely exists in the biosphere middle, particularly in the aquatic animals of fish, shrimp, crab and onshore animals birds' feather, with a variety of biological functions.

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Astaxanthin is one of the 8 kinds feed coloring agents that Chinese Ministry of Agriculture allow using [Other 7 kinds include ²- carotene,The nature and source of astaxanthin Articles ²- A Piao -8 - carotene aldehyde, chili red, ²- A Piao -8 - carotene acid ethyl ester, ²- carotene -4 - dione (cantharides yellow), lutein, marigold flower extract (natural lutein)].

Astaxanthin is a keto-carotenoid, the color is pink, with fat-soluble, insoluble in water, soluble in chloroform, acetone, benzene and carbon disulfide and other organic solvents. Astaxanthin can effectively inhibit the production of melanin, and can significantly reduce melanin deposition, allowing you to stay away from dark spots and colorless skin. Make your skin more white, beautiful, flawless and glossier. Its effect is far better than other whitening ingredients such as arbutin, kojic acid and vitamin C. So far have not found any kind of substance in the same concentration has such a good effect to prevent pigmentation, it is also used for skin lightening cosmetic raw material.

Astaxanthin is the end of carotenoid synthesis, the ²- carotene turns into astaxanthin should be plus 2 keto groups and hydroxy groups. Chemical molecular structure of synthetic astaxanthin has cis and trans, and natural astaxanthin in animals body are mainly trans. China already has astaxanthin manufacturer can successfully synthesize all-trans-astaxanthin, but the synthesis cost are still high, the products are expensive (up to 20000-25000RMB/kg), limiting its application promote.

Astaxanthin extracted from vivo are mostly trans structure, security, environmental protection, and has broad prospects for development. Every year on the current international were produced large amounts of crustaceans processing wastes, these wastes contain small amounts of astaxanthin, but the extraction cost is higher. And resources, regions not concentration, it is difficult to achieve scale production.

In a variety of algae which can produce astaxanthin, pluvialis algae is a very important one, once was considered to be a useful astaxanthin commercial production prospects microalgae. In the training process, if nitrogen deficiency, algae accumulate in astaxanthin. Currently, the international fine pluvialis algae contains up to 0.2% - 2% astaxanthin, generally accounts about 90% of total carotenoids. But algae’s autotrophic period is long, due to need light, the production sites are restricted to some extent, and the algae broken to release astaxanthin difficult and astaxanthin accumulation was inversely proportional to the growth of Haematococcus. Therefore, large-scale production is also more difficult.

Studies found that some fungi can synthesize astaxanthin, such as Phaffia yeast, Rhodotorula rubra, Rhodotorula and so on. Among them, the Phaffia yeast’s astaxanthin accumulation was higher, in the wild strain was account for up to 0.05% of dry cell weight around, some mutant strains up to 0.3%, is the most commonly used strains that microbial fermentation produce astaxanthin. Phaffia yeast is also considered to be the most appropriate astaxanthin source in addition to haematococcus pluvialis. However, the astaxanthin accumulation of yeast also affected by various environmental factors of fermentation, affected by the media, temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, carbon and nitrogen sources is relatively large. Further, Similar with Haematococcus pluvialis, the astaxanthin accumulation in Phaffia yeast is inversely proportional with cell growth rate.

Source:http://www.cosprm.com