PEF-Induced Autolytic Responses to Enhance the Recovery of Microbial-Derived Food Ingredients

Microbial cell factories provide sustainable platforms for producing pigments, lipids, proteins and cell-wall polysaccharides, yet efficient recovery of these intracellular metabolites remains a bottleneck. Pulsed electric fields (PEF) technology is gaining attention as a method for facilitating compound release. Recent studies show that PEF not only permeabilizes membranes but also disrupts intracellular compartmentalization, activating endogenous hydrolases that accelerate the extraction of pigments, lipids, proteins and mannoproteins from microbial biomass. This dual response helps address challenges such as the poor penetration of solvents into hydrated cells and the debris generated by mechanical or enzymatic disruption. The objective of this review is to synthesize mechanistic evidence supporting PEF-assisted autolysis, clarify why short post-treatment incubations enhance extraction efficiency, and evaluate its implications for selective and sequential biorefinery strategies. By consolidating these findings, we highlight the potential of PEF-triggered autolysis as a basis for more controlled recovery of food ingredients from microbial biomass.