Microbial production of biosurfactants and their importance

Karanth, NGK and Deo, PG and Veenanadig, NK (1999) Microbial production of biosurfactants and their importance. In: Current Science, 77 (1). pp. 116-126.

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Abstract

A large variety of microorganisms produce potent surface-active agents, biosurfactants, which vary in their chemical properties and molecular size. While the low molecular weight surfactants are often glycolipids, the high molecular weight surfactants are generally either polyanionic heteropolysaccharides containing covalently-linked hydrophobic side chains or complexes containing both polysaccharides and proteins. The yield of the biosurfactant greatly depends on the nutritional environment of the growing organism, The enormous diversity of biosurfactants makes them an interesting group of materials for application in many areas such as agriculture, public health, food, health care, waste utilization, and environmental pollution control such as in degradation of hydrocarbons present in soil.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Current Science
Publisher:	Indian Academy of Science
Additional Information:	The copyright belongs to Indian Academy of Sciences
Keywords:	microorganisms;biosurfactants;polyanionic heteropolysaccharides;degradation;hydrocarbons
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Biochemistry
Date Deposited:	09 Mar 2005
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:15
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/1543

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