The Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) brings together two complementary teams working on Purple4Life: the High-Performance Research Group in Chemical and Environmental Engineering led by Dr. Daniel Puyol, specializing in purple phototrophic bacteria cultivation and...
Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação (SPI), is an innovation consultancy leading Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation in PURPLE4LIFE. SPI advances dissemination, exploitatation and communication strategies, and stakeholder engagement. SPI: Connecting Innovation...
UMONS is studying six purple bacteria strains in PURPLE4LIFE, producing up to 10 g biomass each, with 3–5 mg/g CoQ10, strong antioxidants, and carotenoids. The top strain will be selected for scale-up and safety testing, showcasing their potential as sustainable bioactive sources.
Since joining the PURPLE4LIFE project in June 2025, the research team at the University of Mons (UMONS), Belgium, has made significant progress in identifying the most promising strains of purple bacteria for producing valuable bioactive compounds.
The UMONS team began by cultivating six potential candidates: Rhodospirillum rubrum, two strains of Cereibacter sphaeroides, two strains of Rhodopseudomonas palustris, and one strain of Rhodobacter capsulatus. Each strain was grown under identical conditions to ensure fair comparison, using a growth medium and 5-liter bottles. From these, the researchers successfully harvested up to 10 grams of dry biomass per strain, paving the way for in-depth analysis.
In parallel, small-scale experiments were designed to observe how the bacteria responded to different light intensities, helping the team understand their growth behaviour under varied environmental conditions.
Collaboration across the PURPLE4LIFE consortium played a key role in advancing this phase. Working closely with partners at UPO (Spain) and UNIBA (Slovakia), UMONS analysed the chemical composition of the biomass and obtained exciting results: the bacterial strains were found to produce Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) at levels ranging from 3 to 5 milligrams per gram of dry biomass.
Further tests performed with CNR (Italy) confirmed the strong antioxidant activity of these samples, supporting their potential use in health-related applications. Meanwhile, detailed carotenoid analysis at UMONS revealed concentrations between 1 and 2 milligrams per gram of biomass, including pigments such as spheroidene, spirilloxanthin, and rhodopin. These compounds not only give the bacteria their characteristic purple hue but also contribute to their antioxidant properties.
In the coming months, the UMONS team will move toward the final selection of the most promising strain. This choice will be based on combined performance in CoQ10 production, carotenoid content, and antioxidant activity. Once selected, the chosen strain will enter the scale-up phase, where larger quantities of biomass will be produced for the next stage of the project: cytotoxicity and allergen testing.
Through this research, UMONS and its partners continue to demonstrate the remarkable potential of purple bacteria as natural sources of high-value bioactive compounds — bringing science one step closer to sustainable innovation.