Obtenção de esqualeno e esqualano por vias biotecnológicas: uma revisão

Abstract

Squalene is a hydrocarbon, classified as a linear triterpene, predecessor of steroids in plants and hormones in animals. Yet squalane is a natural and stable derivative of squalene, therefore it's preferred for cosmetic formulations. Both molecules possess many applications in the industry, because they have unique and high value characteristics, besides they can be easily incorporated in formulations. The bioprospection of squalene and squalane sources makes itself necessary considering the increase of the demand and the problems found in the natural production of them. Additionally there is the environmental concern, the preservation of species and the crescent advance of green markets hence the necessity of creating new production routes that are more sustainable. In this sense, finding microorganisms capable of producing these molecules is of extreme importance. Furthermore, the theme is rarely approached in literature. Thus, this work was made into a systematic review of literature and organized the articles found by order of relevance, applying the Methodi Ordinatio, which uses an equation to order the relevance of the works found in the data bases. The research occurred in the following bases: Google Scholar, Web of Science, Science Direct e Scielo. And used the following keywords combined between them: squalene, squalane, biotechnological process and bioprospecting. With the research it was synthesized what has been written about the two compounds in the biotechnology area, aiming to understand the impact of the researches and which are the potential microrganisms that produce those compounds. The results were better when related to the combination of words squalene and biotechnological process, in all the languages analyzed, differently from the combination squalene and squalane, in which there weren't considerable results. In the other combinations, there were found articles with low potential of being included in this review due to its dissonance with the theme proposed. Beyond that, only the works that were in English and in reputable journals were possible to be classified, the ones that didn't fit these criteria weren’t classified due to the impact factor not being found or not existing.