Microbial Biosynthesis and Biotransformation of Indigo and Indigo-like Pigments

Indigo and indigoid pigments are widely used in the industry of textile, food, and medicine. Now people pay more and more attention to developing environment-friendly methods for indigo production, especially to microbial biosynthesis of indigo. Numbers of microorganisms involved in the biosynthesis of indigo have been isolated and characterized, and monooxygenase and dioxygenase have been identified responsible for catalyzing indigo biosynthesis. Some genes encoding for these enzymes have been cloned and used to construct “engineering bacteria.” With this kind of bacteria, more efficient fermentation systems for indigo production have been exploited. In the meantime, biotransformation of the indigo produced by microorganisms is under investigation. These progresses will bring us a greener method of indigo and indigo-like pigments production.