Pigment productions on rice starches by Monascus anka sp. [Japanese]

摘要

The pigments produced by Monascus sp. are traditionally used in many East Asian countries for processing wide variety of food materials. Recently, we reported that the productivity of the pigments by Monascus anka AHU 9085 on basic medium was considerably improved by the addition of rice starch to the medium. In this report, the amount of pigments produced by Monascus anka AHU 9085 in the medium containing non-glutinous rice starch was larger than that in the one containing glutinous rice starch, and pretreatment of non-glutinous rice starch in the medium by beta-amylase was enhanced the productivity of pigments in the culture. From the results of HPLC and LC-MS, the main purple pigments increased were estimated monascorubrin and rubropunctatin.