TYPE Original Research PUBLISHED 18 January 2023 DOI 10.3389/fmicb.2022.1088477 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY William James Hickey, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States REVIEWED BY Pankaj Kumar Arora, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, India Chan Zhang, Beijing Technology and Business University, China Amit Kumar Mitra, Auburn University, United States *CORRESPONDENCE Debarati Paul dpaul@amity.edu Biswarup Basu biswarupbasu@cnci.ac.in; biswarup.basu@gmail.com † These authors have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship SPECIALTY SECTION This article was submitted to Microbiotechnology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Microbiology RECEIVED 03 November 2022 ACCEPTED 28 December 2022 PUBLISHED 18 January 2023 CITATION Sinha S, Das S, Saha B, Paul D and Basu B (2023) Anti-microbial, anti-oxidant, and anti-breast cancer properties unraveled in yeast carotenoids produced via cost-effective fermentation technique utilizing waste hydrolysate. Front. Microbiol. 13:1088477. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.1088477 COPYRIGHT © 2023 Sinha, Das, Saha, Paul and Basu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Anti-microbial, anti-oxidant, and anti-breast cancer properties unraveled in yeast carotenoids produced via cost-effective fermentation technique utilizing waste hydrolysate Sweta Sinha 1† , Souvik Das 2† , Biswajit Saha 1 , Debarati Paul 1 * and Biswarup Basu 2 * 1 Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, Noida, India, 2 Department of Neuroendocrinology and Experimental Hematology, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata, West Bengal, India Introduction: Natural carotenoids are well known for their anti-oxidant property and also shown to have antimicrobial and anticancer efficacy. Production of carotenoids from microbial resources mainly from yeast has attracted commercial interest. Breast cancer has the highest incidence among women, and therapy resistance and lack of effective therapeutic strategies are major treatment bottlenecks, particularly for triple-negative subtypes. Yeast carotenoids are recently being evaluated for affordable, non-toxic, natural product-based therapies. In the present study, we have shown an environment-friendly and inexpensive method for carotenoid production from yeasts, utilizing “mandi” wastes, and investigated the biomedical properties of carotenoids, particularly antineoplastic properties. Methods: Vegetable “mandi” waste was used to prepare waste hydrolysate, a culture medium, in which oleaginous red yeast Rhodosporidium sp. was grown. Carotenoid pigments were extracted using the solvent extraction method and analyzed by UV spectroscopy, thin-layer chromatography (TLC), and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anticancer activities of the extract were evaluated, followed by in silico docking and absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion/toxicity (ADME/T) studies. Results: Carotenoid extract was found to be composed of three main pigments- β-carotene, torulene, and torularhodin. Extract exhibited significant antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anti-breast cancer activities in vitro while being biocompatible. Interestingly, carotenoids have shown better efficacy in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells than ER+PR+ cells. In silico evaluation predicted binding with breast cancer-specific molecular targets, specifically the three components showed good binding energy toward VEGF receptors and good drug likeliness properties, as well as less toxicity. Discussion: This is the first report on anti-breast cancer activities, particularly targeting TNBC cells by red yeast carotenoids (β-carotene, torulene, and Frontiers in Microbiology 01 frontiersin.org