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Accumulation of yellow Monascus pigments by extractive fermentation in nonionic surfactant micelle aqueous solution

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Abstract

Monascus species can produce various secondary metabolites of polyketide structure. In the current study, it is found that an interesting phenomenon, i.e., submerged culture of Monascus species in an aqueous solution majorly accumulated intracellular orange Monascus pigments exhibiting one peak at 470 nm with absorbance of 32 OD while extractive fermentation in a nonionic surfactant micelle aqueous solution produced extracellular and intracellular yellow Monascus pigments exhibiting one peak at 410 nm with absorbance 30 OD and 12 OD, respectively. The spectrum profiles of both intracellular and extracellular Monascus pigments were affected by surfactant loading, extractive fermentation time, and surfactant adding time. Meanwhile, the instability of orange Monascus pigments in the extracellular nonionic surfactant micelle aqueous solution was also confirmed experimentally. The mechanism behind this phenomenon is attributed to the export of intracellular yellow Monascus pigments into its broth by extractive fermentation. The transferring of intracellular yellow Monascus pigments into its broth blocks yellow Monascus pigments from further enzymatic conversion or eliminates the feedback inhibition of yellow Monascus pigments based on the biosynthetic pathway of Monascus pigments.

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Acknowledgments

The financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No: 21276155) is acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Pharmacy, and State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Xu Xiong & Zhilong Wang

  2. School of Biological Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, People’s Republic of China

    Xu Xiong & Zhenqiang Wu

  3. School of Life Science and Biotechnology, and State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Xuehong Zhang

Authors
  1. Xu Xiong
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  2. Xuehong Zhang
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  4. Zhilong Wang
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Correspondence to Zhilong Wang.

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Xiong, X., Zhang, X., Wu, Z. et al. Accumulation of yellow Monascus pigments by extractive fermentation in nonionic surfactant micelle aqueous solution. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 1173–1180 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-6227-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-6227-0

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