Use of chemical, enzymatic and ultrasound-assisted methods for cell disruption to obtain carotenoids

• Cell disruption of Sporidiobolus salmonicolor (CBS 2636) for carotenoids releasing.
• Enzymatic, chemical and ultrasound-assisted treatments for maximum carotenoids recovering.
• Enzyme for cell disruption is important to produce carotenoids from microbial cells.

This work is focused on the cell disruption of Sporidiobolus salmonicolor (CBS 2636) for releasing carotenoids by means of enzymatic, chemical and ultrasound-assisted treatments. Maximum amount of carotenoids recovered was 572.70 µg L−1 obtained by enzymatic hydrolysis using enzyme concentration of 3.4 g of enzyme per gram of dry cell at 35 °C. Using chemical and ultrasound-assisted methods for cell disruption only 26% of the amount recovered using enzymatic hydrolysis for cell disruption was obtained. Ultrasound-assisted cell disruption alone or combined presented lower performance. The results obtained here pointed out that application of enzymes for cell disruption is an important contributor to produce carotenoids from microbial cells, using green chemistry principles to guide new products/process development.