Astaxanthin production by Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous growing on a low cost substrate

The aim of the study was to evaluate the new approaches for the reduction of food wastes, promoting industrial by-products and food waste recovery. The possibility, starting from fruit and vegetable waste (FVW), of producing astaxanthin from Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous, in fermentative process using a batch mode was evaluated and the effect of light intensity on carotenoid biosynthesis from the yeast, has been investigated. Astaxanthin is a red oxygenated carotenoid valuable in different industries such as aquaculture, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and food. The results obtained in this study highlight that the growth and carotenogenesis of X. dendrorhous on FVW and on the synthetic medium, used as reference, were not suggestively different, neither for yeast growth, being 6.2 g/l and 5.3 g/l, nor for astaxanthin production, resulting 410 μg/g and 355 μg/g, respectively. This preliminary research study and show the chance for reducing waste and pollution from food and agro-industrial wastes discussing the opportunity of producing astaxanthin from X. dendrorhous using low-cost substrates.