Two New Isoflavone Glycosides from the Extracts of the Fungus Monascus pilosus-Fermented Black Soybean

摘要

The fermented product of Monascus genus fungi has been used as a traditional food additive for improving the color of meat, fish, and soybean products, and is also known to have conserving properties in oriental countries for centuries. Monascus-termented red rice, called red mold rice (RMR), has useful secondary metabolites such as pigments, mona-colin K, y-aminoburyric acid (GABA), dimerumic acid, pyridine alkaloids and citrinin. Several secondary metabolites from M. pilosus have recently been found to have some beneficial pharmacological effects such as decreasing the blood pressure, lowering the plasma cholesterol levels, antibacterial and anticancer activity. Recently, we found that red mold black soybean (RMBS), a fermented product of Monascus using black soybean as the substrate has been shown to not only inhibit obesity and hyperlipidemia but also to decrease hepatic fat accumulation in high fat diet-induced obese mice.