Inactivation of mrpigH Gene in Monascus ruber M7 Results in Increased Monascus Pigments and Decreased Citrinin with mrpyrG Selection Marker

Li Li; Na Xu; Fusheng Chen

doi:10.3390/jof7121094

Inactivation of mrpigH Gene in Monascus ruber M7 Results in Increased Monascus Pigments and Decreased Citrinin with mrpyrG Selection Marker

J Fungi (Basel). 2021 Dec 19;7(12):1094. doi: 10.3390/jof7121094.

Authors

Li Li¹, Na Xu¹, Fusheng Chen^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Hubei International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Base of Traditional Fermented Foods, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
² College of Food Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.

Abstract

Monascus pigments (MPs) have been used as food colorants for several centuries in Asian countries and are currently used around the world via Asian catering. The MPs biosynthetic pathway has been well-illustrated; however, the functions of a few genes including mrpigH in the MPs gene cluster of M. ruber M7 are still unclear. In the current study, mrpigH was disrupted in Δmrlig4ΔmrpyrG, a highly efficient gene modification system, using mrpyrG as a selection marker, and ΔmrpigHΔmrlig4ΔmrpyrG::mrpyrG and ΔmrpigHΔmrlig4ΔmrpyrG have been obtained. Subsequently, their morphologies, biomasses, MPs and citrinin (CIT) production were analyzed, respectively. These results have revealed that the deletion of mrpigH has significant effects on the morphology and growth of M. ruber M7. Moreover, compared with M. ruber M7, the yields of MPs and CIT were drastically increased and decreased in mrpigH mutants, respectively.

Keywords: Monascus pigments; Monascus ruber; citrinin; mrpigH.

Abstract

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