Development of Monascus fermentation technology for high hypolipidemic effect

Abstract

Monascus species has been used as the traditional food fungus in Eastern Asia for several centuries. Monascus-fermented products are gradually developed as the popular functional food for the prevention of cardiovascular disease, but we know that culture condition affects the hypolipidemic effect of Monascus-fermented product. In the past, the cholesterol-lowering agent--monacolin K--is regarded as the most important hypolipidemic agent. Two natural yellow pigments--monascin and ankaflavin--are also proven as novel hypolipidemic agents in recent years. However, the hypolipidemic effect of Monascus-fermented product should contribute from monacolin K, monascin, ankaflavin, and other unknown functional ingredients. In addition to hypolipidemic effect, the safety concern of Monascus-fermented product is involved in the levels of mycotoxin--citrinin. The hypolipidemic effect and the production of these functional metabolites or mycotoxin are influenced by many factors such as the choice of culture substrates, carbon and nitrogen source, pH value, extra nutrients, and so on. Therefore, this review focused on the effect of various culture conditions and nutrients on the functional metabolites production, hypolipidemic effect as well as citrinin concentration, and further organized the fermentation technologies used by previous studies for the promotion of hypolipidemic effect and safety.

Monacolin K production by citrinin‐free Monascus pilosusMS‐1 and fermentation process monitoring

“…Therefore, lovastatin (also named mevinolin or mevacor), which is a hypocholesterolemic agent commonly manufactured by Aspergillus terreus [4], was successfully developed and widely used over the past 30 years throughout the world [5,6]. However, lovastatin produced by A. terreus is normally used as a clinical drug because the strain is not generally recognized to be safe [7,8]. In the last 20 years, red fermented rice produced by M. purpureus [20][21][22][23] and M. ruber [24,25], both of which possess citrinin biosynthetic abilities [15,16].…”

Effect of Fermentation on the Antioxidant Activity of Rice Bran by Monascus pilosus KCCM60084

“…Determination of total phenolic content. The total phenolic content was determined using a modified Folin-Ciocalteu method with slight modification (Lee and Pan, 2012). Folin-Ciocalteu reagent was diluted 5 fold by adding deionized water.…”

“…Monascus-fermented products are developed as popular functional foods for the prevention of cardiovascular disease due to the production of Monacolin K, a cholesterol lowering agent (Endo, 1979). Furthermore, Monascus species were reported to produce diverse secondary metabolites with biological functions, including a group of pigments (monascin and ankaflavin), hypotensive agent (γ-aminobutyric acid), antiinflammatory compounds (Monasnicotinates), antioxidant compounds including dimerumic acid and antibacterial compounds (Wong and Bau, 1977;Aniya et al, 2000;Chuang et al, 2011;Wu et al, 2011;Lee and Pan, 2012). In recent studies, other food materials (i.e.…”

A Combined Treatment with Myo-Inositol and Monacolin K Improve the Androgen and Lipid Profiles of Insulin-Resistant PCOS Patients

“…Ferriman-Gallwey score, as well as androgen levels were significantly reduced in all study groups, with a tendency toward a better improvement following the combined treatment with myoinositol and monacolin k. This probably results from the significant increase in SHBG levels observed following treatment with myoinositol+monacolin k [34,35].…”