Analysis of pigment compositions in various monascus cultures

Abstract

The pigments produced by Monascus are a mixture that includes azaphilone pigments. We simultaneously analyzed the 11 identified compounds present in Monascus pigments, and showed that there was a large variety of components produced by different strains and under different culture conditions. For example, pigments of Monascus pilosus NBRC4520 grown in potato dextrose broth were mainly composed of xanthomonascin A and monascorubrin. Ethanol extracts from cultured cells tended to contain more monascin and ankaflavin, and the nitrogen source also influenced the composition of pigment components produced. Moreover MK-1, a mutant of M. pilosus NBRC4520 that produces high levels of lovastatin and pigments (Miyake et al., 2006ab), was found to produce large amounts of rubropunctamine, monascorubramine, monascin and yellow II.