Identification of a Red Pigment-Producing Strain of Arthrobacter spp. and the Stability of Its Pigments

With the rise of environmental protection and health topics in recent years, microbial production of red pigments has gradually become a research hotspot. Red pigment possesses biological properties such as anticancer and antioxidant activities and has a wide range of potential applications in the fields of food and medicine. In this paper, a red pigment-producing strain was screened from rice soil to provide a reserve for obtaining natural and safe red pigments.

The strain LSY1-2 was identified using morphological and 16S rDNA molecular biological identification. The fermentation conditions for red pigment production were optimised to improve pigment yield, and the best conditions were analysed using response surface methodology. Finally, the stabilisation conditions of red pigment were analysed to determine the difficulty of retention.

The molecular ecology was identified as the bacterium Arthrobacter sp. of the genus Arthrobacter. The optimal red pigment production medium for the strain was determined by a one-way test with the carbon source beef extract, the nitrogen source peptone, the inoculum size 2%, the temperature 27 °C, the pH value 7, and the rotational speed 160 rpm. Response surface optimisation determined the optimal red pigment production conditions as the incubation temperature of 26.43 °C, the pH value of 6.89, and the rotational speed of 162.77 rpm, which resulted in the yield of red pigment under these optimal conditions as 0.883 U/mL. The stability of red pigment was best under the condition without light, and poorer under conditions of above 50 °C, strong acid, strong alkali, and more than 3% oxidant, and Fe³⁺ had a greater effect on the stability.

Strain LSY-1 can produce stable red pigment under the optimised red pigment-producing conditions, which provides a reference for the large-scale production of natural red pigment and subsequent related research.