Biomics

It is now known that the blue pigment indigo (in particular, its precursors) is found in about 300 plant species, but only a few species serve as the main sources of indigo, including Indigofera tinctorium, Isatis tinctorium, Polygonum tinctorium (Persikaria tinctoria), Strobilanthes cusia (Baphicacanthus cusia). For several millennia, mankind has been using the plant pigment indigo to dye fabrics and color human bodies. With the development of civilization, indigo also began to be used in traditional medicine to treat various diseases. For many years, indigo was extracted from plant raw materials, but at the end of the 19th century, chemical synthesis of indigo was developed. Nowadays, natural indigo has been almost completely replaced by industrially produced one. About 95% of all synthesized dye is spent on dyeing textile materials, primarily denim, which is used for sewing jeans. The water–soluble indigo derivative, indigocarmine, is employed in medicine, as well as in the food industry as a food additive E132 to give products a cyan or blue color. In the new millennium, due to advances in biochemistry and molecular biology, which revealed the pathways of indigoid biosynthesis in plants and cloned genes of enzymes involved in indigo metabolism, it became possible to use indigo as a reporter molecule in the creation of transgenic plants. The electronics industry also began to show interest in indigo.

indigo, indigoids, indigotin, indican, indoxyl, flavin-dependent monooxygenase, transgenic plants, reporter genes

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