Toxicity Profiling of Biosurfactants Produced by Novel Marine Bacterial Strains (original) (raw)

2021, International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Surface active agents (SAAs), currently used in modern industry, are synthetic chemicals produced from non-renewable sources, with potential toxic impacts on humans and the environment. Thus, there is an increased interest for the identification and utilization of natural derived SAAs. As such, the marine environment is considered a promising source of biosurfactants with low toxicity, environmental compatibility, and biodegradation compared to their synthetic counterparts. MARISURF is a Horizon 2020 EU-funded project aiming to identify and functionally characterize SAAs, derived from a unique marine bacterial collection, towards commercial exploitation. Specifically, rhamnolipids produced by Marinobacter MCTG107b and Pseudomonas MCTG214(3b1) strains were previously identified and characterized while currently their toxicity profile was assessed by utilizing well-established methodologies. Our results showed a lack of cytotoxicity in in vitro models of human skin and liver as indica...