RAPD markers are used to study the genetic diversity of the main planting on 37 castor varieties widely cultivated in china according to the oil content and other characteristic of different castor varieties. Genetic distance of 37 Chinese castor varieties is studied by RAPD markers analysis. RAPD analysis shows that a total of 122 bands are amplified from random primers of 20 S series, including 71 polymorphic bands with polymorphic rate of 58.20%. 37 castor beans are divided into four major groups in the phylogenetic tree. One castor germplasm is included in1, 2, 3 groups respectively, and two sub-groups are included in the 4 major group.

Red Yeast Rice and monascus pigments are main monascus products in China. Monascus pigments are used as natural food colorants. Red Yeast Rice can be used as material of monascus pigments or as nutrition supplement. The citrinin contamination in monascus products restricts the health development of monascus fermentation relative companies. We collected and investigated 20 monascus products from different companies in China. The quality evaluation was measured from three aspects as follow: pigments color values, monacolin k content, and contamination of citrinin. The results showed that 50% monascus pigments samples are superior in quality, which have higher color values without the citrinin contamination. Most of Red Yeast Rice samples absent of monacolin k. Only two Red Yeast Rice samples contain monacolin k, which accompanied with citrinin contamination.

In this paper we optimized liquid fermentation conditions of Monascus X-1 on cholesterol oxidase (COD) production, and then the COD was isolated by ammonium sulfate deposition and its properties were studied. The results showed that COD produced by Monascus X-1 was a kind of extracellular enzyme. The yields came to maximum at the 6th day. The most suitable medium for Monascus X-1 generating COD was the rice medium, the highest enzyme activity was obtained at 140r/min, inoculum concentration 6%, when 60mL of the culture in 250mL shake flasks grown in rice medium. Under the optimized cultivation conditions, the enzyme activity reached 1168U/L, which increased 1.52 times compared to the previous fermentation conditions. The enzyme had favorable pH and thermal stability, while the optimum pH and temperature of enzyme activity was 7.0 and 40, respectively.

. A castor oil-based detection method for the analysis of biological degradation was established on the base of CEC-L-33-A-93 test method and the domestic conventional experimental methods. Difference of the test samples between the experimental and published values was less then 0.50%. Maximum error of degradation rate was 1.92% in parallel experimental. Compared to the domestic conventional methods, degradation rate obtained by the improved analysis methods of castor oil-based is approximately higher than 5.0%. Meanwhile, analysis and detection method of DIOS with advantage of high accuracy, conveniency and good reproducibility is established and showed stability by studying the correlation of parallel samples that the coefficient of variation is less than 5%.

To increase the production of active substances, response surface methodology (RSM) was employed. The results showed that the inoculation size, concentrations of MgSO4•7H2O and KNO3 in medium had significant effects on yields of active substances and the final values optimized with RSM were 12.75 % inoculation size, 0.34 g/L MgSO4•7H2O and 0.13 g/L KNO3, respectively, which increased 1.96 fold production of active substances in comparison to the production of initial fermentation conditions.