| Popis: |
Microbial exopolysaccharides (EPS), a carbohydrate biopolymer containing several distinct monosaccharides and non-carbohydrate substituents (molecular mass from 10 to 1000 kDa), constitute mainly sugar residues. The EPS is both homopolymer and heteropolymer supported their shape and size depend on degree of polymerization, derived from various microorganisms. Biosurfactants can be distinctive as the surface-bioactive biomolecules produced by microorganisms with broad array of applications. It has the viscoelastic quality maintained in the temperature range of 5–60 °C. Up to date, microbial EPS (biosurfactants) have found many applications including environmental remediation, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and food industry. First and foremost, the biosurfactants achieved a prospective interest for environmental applications of inorganic and organic contaminants, mainly in hydrocarbons, heavy metal removal from water and soil, enhanced oil recovery, and pharmaceutical products. The modified EPS act as suitable agent for biodegradation of textile dyes. It has potential and promising application in textiles, paper and pulp, coal, ceramic processing, health care and cosmetics, food industries, detergents, pesticide and herbicide formulation, uranium ore-processing and mechanical dewatering of peat, etc. The EPS and their derivatives which include alginate, dextran, gellan, pullulan, and xanthan are nontoxic, biodegradable drug carriers which help in drug delivery system. These molecules also exhibit immunomodulator, antibacterial, antioxidant, antibiofilm, antiviral, and antitumor activity and expand to scaffold engineering. The distinctive rheological properties of those molecules are helpful for jelly formation in food industry. It also acts as crystallization inhibitor which helps in ice-cream manufacturing, and their stable emulsion property maintains well-built emulsification indexes with soya bean oil and hydrocarbons. Thus, the biosurfactants act as multifunctional biomolecules with wide applications in various fields. |
