Citrinin, a fungal secondary metabolite of polyketide origin, is moderately nephrotoxic to vertebrates, including humans. Citrinin is synthesised by condensation of acetyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA. Six genes involved in the citrinin biosynthesis, including pksCT, ctnA and ctnB, have been cloned in Monascus purpureus. The pksCT gene encodes a polyketide synthase; ctnA is a regulatory factor; and ctnB encodes an oxidoreductase. When the three genes were respectively disrupted, the disruption strains drastically decreased citrinin production or barely produced citrinin. Ten new genes have been discovered in Monascus aurantiacus besides the above six genes. One of these gene displayed the highest similarity to the β-carbonic anhydrase gene from Aspergillus oryzae (74% similarity) and was designated ctnG. To learn more about the citrinin biosynthetic pathway, a ctnG-replacement vector was constructed to disrupt ctnG with the hygromycin resistance gene as the selection marker, then transformed into M. aurantiacus Li AS3.4384 by a protoplast-PEG method. The citrinin content of three disruptants was reduced to about 50%, meanwhile pigment production decreased by 23%, respectively, over those of the wild-type strains. ctnG was deduced to be involved in the formation of malonyl-CoA as a common precursor of red pigments and citrinin. Therefore, the disruption of the ctnG gene decreased citrinin and pigment production. M. aurantiacus Li AS3.4384 can produce higher concentrations of citrinin than other strains such as M. purpureus and M. ruber. Establishing the function of citrinin biosynthetic genes in M. aurantiacus is helpful in understanding the citrinin synthetic pathway and adopting some strategies to control contamination.
Keywords: Monascus aurantiacus; citrinin; ctng gene; replacement-disrupted vector.