A mutant of Monascus purpureus obtained by carbon ion beam irradiation yielded yellow pigments using various nitrogen sources.

The industrial production of monascus yellow pigments (MYPs) has not yet been done due to the lack of high-quality industrial Monascus strains. In this work, we employed carbon ion beam (12C6+) irradiation to screen Monascus strains that produce high-quality extracellular MYPs (extr-MYPs). One genetically stable M. purpureus mutant of BWY-5 with extr-MYPs accumulation was obtained under 12C6+ irradiation (80 MeV/u, 200 Gy). M. purpureus BWY-5 could use various nitrogen sources to produce single pH stable extr-MYPs (around 80 AU at 370 nm). Moreover, citrinin was not detected by HPLC method. Transcriptomics of the MYP production strain suggested that Carbon ion beam irradiation led to deletion (MpigF, MpigG and MpigH), downregulation (CtnE, CtnH and CtnI) and upregulation (MpigM) of genes related with biosynthesis of MOPs and MRPs, citrinin, and extr-MYPs, respectively. The results showed that M. purpureus BWY-5 has the potential to be used as an industrial Monascus strain and platform for extr-MYPs production and monascus polyketide synthetic pathway studies, respectively.