Microbial synthesis of anthocyanins and pyranoanthocyanins: current bottlenecks and potential solutions

Abstract

Anthocyanins (ACNs) are secondary metabolites found in plants. Due to their impressive biological activities, ACNs have gained significant popularity and extensive application within the food, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical industries. A derivative of ACNs: pyranoanthocyanins (PACNs) possesses more stable properties and interesting biological activities. However, conventional methods for the production of ACNs, including chemical synthesis and plant extraction, involve organic solvents. Microbial synthesis of ACNs from renewable biomass, such as amino acids or flavonoids, is considered a sustainable and environmentally friendly method for large-scale production of ACNs. Recently, the construction of microbial cell factories (MCFs) for the efficient biosynthesis of ACNs and PACNs has attracted much attention. In this review, we summarize the cases of microbial synthesis of ACNs, and analyze the bottlenecks in reconstructing the metabolic pathways for synthesizing PACNs in microorganisms. Consequently, there is an urgent need to investigate the mechanisms behind the development of MCFs for PACNs synthesis. Such research also holds significant promise for advancing the production of food pigments. Meanwhile, we propose potential solutions to the bottleneck problem based on metabolic engineering and enzyme engineering. Finally, the development prospects of natural food and biotechnology are discussed.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Anthocyanins
• Pyranoanthocyanins
• Microbial cell factories
• Biosynthesis
• Pyran ring

Author contribution

Weibin Bai: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, supervision. Weijie Zhou: Investigation, writing-original draft, project administration. Weiqiu Ding: Formal analysis, writing-review & editing. Xingyuan Wu: Visualization, writing-review. Jianxia Sun: Resources, conceptualization.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no commercial or financial conflict of interest.

Data availability

No data was used for the research described in the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32172220, U22A20546, 32272336), the Technology Program of Guangzhou (No. 202206010121), and the Guangdong Key Area Research and Development Program (No. 2022B0202040003).