Full Length Research Paper
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.
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