Abstract:Monascus red pigment is a natural pigment produced by Monascus with medicinal and nutritional values. In order to improve the yield of Monascus red pigment through liquid fermentation, the mutagenesis of Monascus purpureus LBBE was performed based on atmospheric and room temperature plasma (ARTP), and the fermentation optimization was also conducted. The mutagenesis condition of ARTP was set with 107/mL of Monascus spore and 10 SLM of aeration at 80 W of power for 42 s. After 10 rounds mutagenesis under the mentioned condition, the positive mutation rate of the strain decreased from 44.6 % to 3.8 %, and the mutant LBBE-15 achieved 1 244 U/mL of the red pigment, which was 1.26 times of the original strain. The optimal culture condition of Monascus was determined as follows:7% inoculation quantity, 1 g/L manganese sulfate, and initial pH 3.7. Then, the yield of the red pigment reached 1 376 U/mL under the optimized culture condition. As indicated by batch fermentation, the mutant strain produced 642 U/mL red pigmentin 50 L jar-fermenter. The results here provided reference data for realizing industrial scale production of Monascus red pigment.
