Progress in purification and downstream processing strategies toward ectoine as an emerging substance for food and...

Food processing and pharmaceutical sectors demand the finding of new chemical substances from either natural and microbial origin to be applied in commercial products and formulations. However, such industries seek non-conventional solutes and substances that may not only provide improved properties to the new commercial product but also offer health benefits to the consumers. Currently, ectoine, which is a microbial-derived extremolyte, has been identified, produced and extracted with the purpose of new applications in food, cosmetical and pharmaceutical health care formulations. However, despite there is deep research toward its production via biotechnological approaches, recent reports suggest that its purification and isolation represent a current challenge due to its intracellular presence and the complexity of the microbial fermentation system. To date, there is no universal recovery strategy toward such valuable substance, even if the research community is aware of the great potential of this substance, needed solutions for its purification for post-application are still under rigorous investigation. Therefore, the core of this review paper focuses on analyzing the progress toward this tough recovery and isolation of ectoine from different biotechnological systems, giving a critical discussion on the reported cases of the study and relevant strategies involving several downstream processing stages.