Formation of water-soluble Monascus red pigments by biological and semi-synthetic processes
1992
Lin, T.F. | Yakushijin, K. | Buchi, G.H. | Demain, A.L.
New water-soluble red pigments were produced by Monascus sp. in a chemically defined fermentation medium containing glutamate as nitrogen source. They were isolated and characterized as glutamate derivatives of the well-known orange Monascus pigments (monascorubrin and rubropunctatin). The new pigments have several advantages over the known red Monascus pigments (rubropunctamine and monascorubranmine) including very high water-solubility, higher absorption coefficient, and greater resistance to decoloration by light. Adding glutamate, glycine or leucine to a resting-cell system led to the formation of specific water-soluble red pigments corresponding to the exogenous amino acid. The water-soluble red pigments produced by resting-cells have retention times identical to those of the corresponding red derivatives made chemically from the orange pigments in methanol-phosphate buffer at pH 7. The hydrophobicities of the amino acid sources correspond to the HPLC retention times of the red pigments derived from them.
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