Journal
APPLIED SCIENCES-BASEL
Volume 10, Issue 24, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/app10248867
Keywords
Monascus ruber; food colorant; citrinin mycotoxin; biosafety evaluation
Categories
Funding
- King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [RSP-2020/283]
- National Research Centre, Cairo, Egypt
- National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) - Ministry of Science and ICT, Republic of Korea [NRF-2019R1A2C1003463]
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The color of food is a critical factor influencing its general acceptance. Owing to the effects of chemical colorants on health, current research is directly aimed at producing natural and healthy food colorants from microbial sources. A pigment-producing fungal isolate, obtained from soil samples and selected based on its rapidity and efficiency in producing red pigments, was identified as Monascus ruber OMNRC45. The culture conditions were optimized to enhance pigment production under submerged fermentation. The optimal temperature and pH for the highest red pigment yield were 30 degrees C and 6.5, respectively. The optimum carbon and nitrogen sources were rice and peptone, respectively. The usefulness of the pigment produced as a food colorant was evaluated by testing for contamination by the harmful mycotoxin citrinin and assessing its biosafety in mice. In addition, sensory evaluation tests were performed to evaluate the overall acceptance of the pigment as a food colorant. The results showed that M. ruber OMNRC45 was able to rapidly and effectively produce dense natural red pigment under the conditions of submerged fermentation without citrinin production. The findings of the sensory and biosafety assessments indicated the biosafety and applicability of the red Monascus pigment as a food colorant.
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