**6. Conclusions**

The development of new pigments safe and effective to apply in foods, medicines, textile and cosmetic industries is essential and welcome. Natural pigments are a great alternative regarding not being related to toxic, allergic, and pollutant characteristics of the most common synthetic dyes. Fungi azaphilone pigments are recognized as promising candidates of colorants to substitute azo dyes in the food, cosmetics, and textile industrial sectors, as long as safety and production issues are overcome.

Azaphilone research is proliferous and at least 101 new compounds of this class were reported between December 2019 and March 2021 from nine fungal genera (*Aspergillus*, *Chaetomium*, *Hypoxylon*, *Monascus*, *Muycopron*, *Penicillium*, *Phomopsis*, *Pleosporales,* and *Talaromyces*). Some of the new azaphilones exhibit complex chemical structures, and their biosynthesis have been studied to understand nutrients requirements for biomass production and yield improvement. Also, several studies have been conducted to understand down-regulation of citrinin co-production.

Coloring properties and the natural origin are not the only features of azaphilones, since antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and other properties related to these molecules have been widely reported. This potential can be explored in food or cosmetic processing to avoid microbial contamination or to furnish functional properties to foods.

This review brought some strategies used to improve fermentation conditions, control pigment production, and issues related to different fungal strains that produce azaphilone pigments, reported in the last two years. Future perspectives include more research that could allow azaphilone dyes to be regularized by the EU, US and other regulatory agencies, so they can be plentiful incorporated in different technological innovative applications.

**Funding:** This research was funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG PPM-00255-18), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq Grant 304922/2018-8), and National Institute of Science and Technology—INCT BioNat, (grant # 465637/2014-0), Brazil.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
