An eco-friendly and up-scalable approach to extract canthaxanthin from yeast cells

Canthaxanthin is a naturally occurring ketocarotenoid pigment present in plants, algae, bacteria and some fungi. In addition to its coloring role, canthaxanthin has an excellent antioxidant activity, thus having additional market demands in the feed, food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Canthaxanthin can be directly isolated from its natural source or produced by chemical synthesis, but these strategies either result in low yields, or use hazardous solvents, respectively. Therefore, the biosynthesis of canthaxanthin using microbial cell factories is becoming an advantageous alternative. Furthermore, microbial synthesis represents an economic and sustainable approach as it enables the use of agriculture and industrial wastes as substrates. In this work, the extraction, recovery and purification of canthaxanthin from modified yeasts using food grade solvents and up-scalable methodologies was studied. The resulting canthaxanthin-enriched extract was characterized (UV-Vis, PXRD and SEM) and quantified (HPLC), resulting in a canthaxanthin purity of 43.7 % (w/w).