Effects of Monascus pigments on fat metabolism in Caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

Monascus spp. are traditional eatable filamentous fungi and have been utilized in China for more than one thousand years. Their fermented products, named hongqu, are a kind of traditional fermentation food and traditional Chinese medicine. Monascus pigments, the important polyketide secondary metabolites of Monascus have been widely used in food and medicine fields. It has been proved that Monascus pigments have a series of biological activities, such as anti-obesity activity, anticancer effects, antibacterial and antioxidant effects. The effects of Monascus pigments on nabolism and catabolism of lipid in Caenorhabditis elegans were studied. It was found that Monascus pigments could significantly reduce fat accumulation in the body of C. elegans wild-type (N2), reduce the contents of TG, MDA, CAT and ROS, and increase the content of SOD. At the same time, Monascus pigments can extend the maximum life span of nematodes and the tolerance time under emergency state, and Monascus pigments can reduce the accumulation of fat by improving the movement level of nematodes. The results of quantitative PCR showed that Monascus pigments inhibited the expression level of fat-5, fat-6, fat-7, mdt-15, pod-2, acs-2 and kat-1, and increased the expression level of nhr49, atgl-1 and ech-1 in wild-type (N2) C. elegans. Monascus pigments have the activity of reducing fat accumulation obviously, and can develop new functional products for its lipid-lowering characteristics and open up the market of functional food of monascus in our country.