BioProject

Indigo has been used for thousands of years as a dye, which is traditionally derived from various blue dye plants, including woad (Isatis tinctoria), knotweed (Polygonum tinctorium), Indigofera (Indigofera tinctoria and Indigofera suffruticosa), et. More...

Indigo has been used for thousands of years as a dye, which is traditionally derived from various blue dye plants, including woad (Isatis tinctoria), knotweed (Polygonum tinctorium), Indigofera (Indigofera tinctoria and Indigofera suffruticosa), et. al. As a vat dye, insoluble indigo needs to be reduced to its water-soluble form, leuco-indigo. In the traditional process, indigo reduction occurs by natural fermentation. The indigo-reducing Clostridium isatidis has been isolated from a couched woad (Isatis tinctoria) vat prepared by a traditional medieval European procedure. There are much more indigo-reducing species have been isolated from various Japanese indigo fermentation materials. It is considered that there are more unknown indigo-reducing bacteria in traditional natural indigo. Less...