Microbial Biosurfactants
Biosurfactants are classified according to their molecular weight and categorized by their
microbial origin and composition. The high molecular weight
biosurfactants include the lipopolysaccharides but those of main interest are the low molecular weight glycolipids and lipopeptides (LPs) and phospholipids. Of the glycolipids which include trehalolipids, cellobiose lipids, mannosylerythritol lipids (MELs), rhamnolipids, (derived from mainly Pseudomonas) and sophorolipids (SLs), (derived from Candida and related species) are of the most interest. The glycolipids and the LPs are the
biosurfactants of most interest in terms of their therapeutic potential of those investigated thus far. Rhamnolipids are amphipathic in nature comprising hydrophobic and hydrophilic moieties which enable them to reduce surface and interfacial tensions. The antimicrobial property of rhamnolipids is attributed to their permeabilizing effect which leads to disruption of the bacterial cell plasma membrane and ability to change bacterial cell hydrophobicity. They also have the ability to prevent and obstruct biofilm formation making the constituent bacteria more susceptible to antimicrobial agents. Sophorolipids are produced by yeasts. They have a dimeric carbohydrate sophorose linked to a longâ€chain hydroxyl fatty acid through a glycosidic bond .It is rapidly becoming apparent that the range of biosurfactant congeners produced by a microâ€organism may have very different types and extents of bioactivity and therefore it is important to use highly purified individual congeners to assign unequivocally an activity to a specific congener.
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