Study of secondary metabolites from Monascus sanguineus and their application as functional food

Abstract

Microbial secondary metabolites play a major role in the sphere of health nutrition and economics of our society These include antibiotics pheromones pigments enzyme inhibitors toxins pesticides immune modulating agents receptor agonists and antagonists antitumor agents and promoters of growth in plants and animals They often have abnormal structures and their formation is controlled by nutrients enzyme inactivation growth rate and feedback control and enzyme induction Its synthesis genes are generally located on chromosomal DNA and few on plasmids DNA newline