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Insights into Monascus biology at the genetic level

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Abstract

The genus of Monascus was nominated by van Tieghem in 1884, but its fermented product—red mold rice (RMR), namely red yeast rice, has been used as folk medicines, food colorants, and fermentation starters for more than thousands of years in oriental countries. Nowadays, RMR is widely developed as food supplements around the world due to its functional compounds such as monacolin K (MK, also called lovastatin) and γ-aminobutyric acid. But the usage of RMR also incurs controversy resulting from contamination of citrinin (a kind of mycotoxin) produced by some Monascus strains. In the past decade, it has made great progress to Monascus spp. at the genetic level with the application of molecular biology techniques to restrain the citrinin production and increase the yields of MK and pigment in RMR, as well as aid Monascus classification and phylogenesis. Up to now, hundreds of papers about Monascus molecular biology (MMB) have been published in the international primary journals. However, to our knowledge, there is no MMB review issued until now. In this review, current understanding of Monascus spp. from the view of molecular biology will be covered and insights into research areas that need to be further investigated will also be discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the members of Food Biotechnology and Food Safety Laboratory in Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan of China for their dedicated work. Research in Monascus spp. is supported by Major Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 31330059) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 31271834, 31171649, and 31371824).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Environment Correlative Dietology, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, People’s Republic of China

    Fusheng Chen

  2. State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, People’s Republic of China

    Yanchun Shao & Fusheng Chen

  3. College of Food Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, People’s Republic of China

    Yanchun Shao, Ming Lei, Zejing Mao & Fusheng Chen

  4. Institute of Quality Standard and Testing Technology for Agro-Products, Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Youxiang Zhou

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  1. Yanchun Shao
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  2. Ming Lei
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  3. Zejing Mao
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  4. Youxiang Zhou
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Correspondence to Fusheng Chen.

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Shao, Y., Lei, M., Mao, Z. et al. Insights into Monascus biology at the genetic level. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 98, 3911–3922 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-5608-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-5608-8

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