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Purpose of Review Worldwide occurring Moringa plant is commonly famous as a fruit vegetable, known as drumstick or shevga all over India. The miraculous nutritional potential of the drumstick plant was already proved by worldwide research. But in the common population, it is unknown for the nutritional potential of its leaves. The majority of the population is known it only as a fruit vegetable. The Moringa leaves contain almost all essential nutrients, growth factors, vitamins, amino acids, proteins, minerals, and metals like potassium, iron, and zinc. Besides these, nowadays, plant leaves may be used to prepare various nutritional supplements and medicine. Recent Findings Besides this, this review takes into account some joint efforts of NASI, Allahabad-funded project to use these Moringa leaves for different formulations and its popularization efforts for malnutrition eradication in tribal, i.e., development of recipes of Moringa leaves that will not only make easy preparations but also help to make habitual use of Moringa leaves today. Summary This review describes the morphology, occurrence, and distribution of Moringa sp., chemical constitutions of Moringa leaves, its potential as anticancer, antidiabetes, and antimicrobial agent and as a nutritional supplement and the commercial future of various products.

Red and yellow pigments from Monascus purpureus (NMCC-PF01) were evaluated to enhance sun protection factor (SPF) of commercial sunscreens and Aloe vera extract. The extracted Monascus pigments contain rubropunctamine (red pigment) and the mixture of monascin and ankaflavin (yellow pigment) as major components. Antioxidant activity and in-vitro safety of the pigments were assessed by ferric reduction potential and DPPH radical scavenging assays, human keratinocytes (HaCaT), and erythrocytes (RBCs) cytotoxicity assay, respectively. In results, SPF of commercial sunscreens showed an increase of 36.5% with red pigment compared to the 13% increase by yellow pigment. The in-vitro studies showed 67.6% ferric reducing potential and 27% DPPH radical scavenging activity, neither cytotoxic effect against human keratinocytes nor haemolytic activity. These results confirmed the safe nature of the Monascus pigments; however, in-vivo studies merit further research. In conclusion, screened pigments from Monascus purpureus may act as potential candidates to increase SPF of commercial sunscreen naturally.

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This study aims to explore the fermentative production and physicochemical properties of an exopolysaccharide (EPS) produced from agricultural isolate, Bacillus subtilis S1 in submerged culture. The structural characterization (Ultraviolet‐visible spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and 13C Nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry) revealed that the EPS is an acidic heteropolymer consisting of glucose, glucuronic acid, pyruvic acid, and succinic acid. The non‐Newtonian shear thickening nature of EPS with a 1.55 × 107 Da molecular weight is confirmed by rheology analysis. The extracted EPS was 61.3% amorphous with partial crystallinity (38.7%) as confirmed by X‐ray diffraction analysis. The EPS shows two‐step decomposition and thermal stability up to 300 °C as confirmed by thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry analysis. The EPS has a small Z‐average particle size (74.29 nm), high porosity (92.99%), high water holding (92.39%), and absorption capacity (1,198%). The biocompatible nature is confirmed by cytotoxic testing on the human keratinocytes cell line. The demonstrated unique characteristics of Bacillus EPS presents it as a choice of biomaterial for diverse applications.