Multidisciplinary characterization of melanin pigments from the black fungus Cryomyces antarcticus

• Published in: Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
• Main Authors: Claudia Pacelli, Alessia Cassaro, Alessandro Maturilli, TIMPERIO A, Federica Gevi, Barbara Cavalazzi, Mariana Stefan, Daniela Ghica, Silvano Onofri
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; antarcticus
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2067/43196

Melanin is a natural pigment present in almost all biological groups, and is composed of indolic polymers and characterized by black-brown colorization. Furthermore, it is one of the pigments produced by extremophiles including those living in the Antarctic desert, and is mainly involved in their protection from high UV radiation, desiccation, salinity and oxidation. Previous studies have shown that melanized species have an increased capability to survive high level of radiation compared with the non-melanized counterpart. Understanding the molecular composition of fungal melanin could help to understand this peculiar capability. Here, we aimed to characterize the melanin pigment extracted from the Antarctic black fungus Cryomyces antarcticus, which is a good test model for radioprotection researches, by studying its chemical properties and spectral data. Our results demonstrated that, in spite of having a specific type of melanin as the majority of fungi, the fungus possesses the ability to produce both 1,8-dihydroxynaphthalene (DHN) and L 3-4 dihydroxyphenylalanine(LDOPA) melanins, opening interesting scenarios for the protection role against radiation. Researches on fungal melanin have a huge application in different fields, including radioprotection, bioremediation, and biomedical applications. 9