Sophorolipids Characteristics, Production, and Applications - Biosurfactants: Research Trends and Applications - page 105

4 Sophorolipids

Characteristics, Production,
and Applications

Vivek K. Morya and Eun-Ki Kim

CONTENTS
Introduction ............................................................................................................ 105
Structure and Properties ......................................................................................... 106
Sophorolipid-Producing Microbes ......................................................................... 110
Production Strategies and Media Design for Sophorolipid Production ................. 111
Applications of Sophorolipids ............................................................................... 114
Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 117
References .............................................................................................................. 117

INTRODUCTION
Biosurfactants or surface active biopolymers display a specific range of structures
and have been well known for their ability to cause emulsification. Based on their
chemical composition, microbe-originated biosurfactants have been broadly grouped
into glycolipids, lipopeptides, lipoproteins, phospholipids, fatty acids (hydroxylated
and crossed-linked), polymeric surfactants, and particulate surfactants. The glyco-
lipids (e.g., trehalose lipids, rhamnolipids, sophorolipids, mannosylerythritol lipids,
lipopeptides, surfactin, iturin, fengycin, lichenysin, emulsan, biodispersan, and lipo-
san) have been one of the prior choices for the researcher for exploring the biosur-
factants. Among all, rhamnolipids and sophorolipids are two most explored and
commercialized sophorolipids. Here, we are going to focus on some fundamentals
and applications of sophorolipids. Gorin et al. (1961) described about sophorolipid
for the first time in 1961. After that, numerous manuscripts have been published.
Like other surfactants, they also facilitated the uptake of hydrophobic substrates
such as triglycerides or alkanes by the microorganisms.
The sophorolipids receive an important position in both academic and commer-
cial areas because of various kinds of bioactivities, which include the properties of
detergency, bioremediation, enhanced oil recovery, and its medicinal application.
Various numbers of nonpathogenic organisms are known as sophorolipid producer,
with a significantly high yield (Desai and Banat, 1997; Kitamoto et al., 2002; van
Bogaert et al., 2007, 2011; Adamezak and Bednarski, 2000).

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