Abstract
Melanin is a secondary metabolite composed of complex heterogeneous polymers. Fungal melanin is considered to be a sustainable and biodegradable natural pigment and has a variety of functional properties and biological activities. On one hand, due to its own specific properties it can play the role of antioxidant, anti-radiation, adsorption, and photoprotection. On the other hand, it has good biological activities such as hepatoprotective effect, hypolipidemic effect and anti-cancer. Therefore, it is widely used in various fields of daily life, including dyeing, food, biomedical and commercial industry. It is conducive to environmental protection and human health. However, the insolubility of fungal melanin in water, acids and organic solvents has been an obstacle to its commercial applications. Thus, the chemical modification methods of fungal melanin are summarized to increase its solubility and expand the application fields. Although fungal melanin has been used in many industries, as the structure and function of fungal melanin and modified melanin are further studied, more functional properties and bioactivities are expected to be discovered for a wide range of applications in the future.
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This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31,572,182; 31,772,375) to Aimin Ma.
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All authors contributed to this study. RL and AM had the ideas for the article and performed the literature search and data analysis. RL wrote the manuscript. XM, CM, XW and AM critically reviewed the manuscript.
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Liu, R., Meng, X., Mo, C. et al. Melanin of fungi: from classification to application. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 38, 228 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-022-03415-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-022-03415-0