African Journal of
Microbiology Research

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Microbiol. Res.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1996-0808
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJMR
  • Start Year: 2007
  • Published Articles: 5238

Full Length Research Paper

Identification of thirteen up-expressed sequence tags from Monascus pilosus mutant MK-1

  Mingyong Zhang1,2, Xing Yang1,3, Tsuyoshi Miyake2, Yaqing Wang4* and Kuaifei Xia1
  1Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Sustainable Utilization, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China. 2Industrial Technology Center of Okayama Prefecture, Haga 5301, Okayama, Japan. 3Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. 4College of Life Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China.
Email: [email protected]

  •  Accepted: 19 September 2011
  •  Published: 16 October 2011

Abstract

 

Monascus pilosus MK-1 is a mutant of M. pilosus IFO4520, which is used to brew the red yeast rice for food industry as functional food additives or food colorants. The obvious phenotypes of the mutant MK-1 showed a high productivity of lovastatin and red pigments, slow growth of the fungal mycelia comparing with the wild type IFO4520. Through thesuppression subtractive hybridization, we identified 30 up-expressed sequence tags (up-EST) (AB193486 to AB193498) from the mutant MK-1. Among them, 10 of the up-ESTs were homologues of the known-functional genes. Two up-ESTs (AB193498 and AB193494) are the transcript factor-related gene homologues, and they were homologous with the phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate 5-kinase and the transcription factor respectively. Three up-ESTs (AB193487, AB193496 and AB193497) were homologous with pyruvate carboxylase, glyceraldehydes-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and ATP-dependent protease respectively, and the three genes are involved in the carbon metabolism. Four up-ESTs (AB193486, AB193488, AB193491 and AB193495) were homologous with the ADP-ribosylation factors. An up-EST (AB193490) was a homologue of penicillin-binding protein. These up-ESTs might indicate to explain the phenotypic differences between the wild type IFO4520 and the mutant MK-1.

 

Key words: Monascus pilosus, lovastatin, EST, red pigment.