Opportunities and challenges in omics approaches for biosurfactant production and feasibility of site remediation: Strategies and advancements

Biosurfactants are molecules of 21st century. Their application(s) intercedes in daily life of living beings. Major limitation in the wide applicability of biosurfactant(s) is the economicity of production. To overcome this several strategies can be employed. This review is centered on the recent technological advancements in biosurfactant research. The advancement(s) include the use of metabolomic and sequence based omics approaches that has become a high-throughput indispensable tool for the identification of biosurfactant producers. A plethora of microorganisms synthesize biosurfactants, along with other value-added products namely ethanol, microbial lipids, and polyhydroxyalkanoates has been reported. This can significantly improve the economics of the overall process and limitations can further be dealt by employing metabolic engineering approaches. Tailoring strategy enables modification in the composition of congeners produced and improves the yield of biosurfactant. Bio-based surfactants have shown promising results against combating the pollution in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems either by increasing their bioavailability or aqueous solubility. Owing to the ever-increasing market of biosurfactant(s), this review summarized technologically feasible advancement(s) in biosurfactant research that may enable the researchers to develop more safer and reliable technologies.