Astaxanthin: commercial production and its potential health-promoting effects

Abstract

Astaxantin is a naturally occurred orange-red pigment in a wide variety of living organisms such as microalgae, yeast, salmon, trout, crayfish and crustaceans. Classically astaxanthin have been commercially used as feed additives to improve the pigmentation in aquaculture and poultry industries. In addition to its role as a pigment, astaxanthin may efficiently work biological antioxidant in vivo. Recently it has been repor ted its potent biological actions, such as antioxidative activity, anti-diabetic, anti-inflammator y actions, immunomodulator y and anticancer activity. Thus, in the1990s, there has been significant commercial interest in developing cultivation of unicellular green algae named Haematococcus as a promised source of astaxanthin used for food industr y. The aim of this review, a summary of industrial production of astaxanthin by Heamatococcus algae and the potent biological activity of astaxanthin, was to provide a further understanding of the beneficial health effects of astaxanthin.