A MS-1 strain with high-yield monacolin K but no citrinin.

Monacolin K (MK) produced by spp. is mostly used to regulate cholesterol level， while it can be contaminated by citrinin， a mycotoxin yielded by some strains. To develop production of citrinin-free MK， an . sp. MS-1 strain， identified as by morphologies and internal transcribed spacer sequences analysis， was isolated from red fermented rice. After 14 days of fermentation， yields of citrinin-free MK could be up to 0.58 mg/mL and 16.45 mg/g in liquid- and solidstate fermentation products under optimal conditions， respectively. Further determination revealed that no citrinin biosynthesis related genes such as ， ， ， and were detected. Thus， HPLC combined with citrinin-related gene analyses can be used for rapid screening of non-citrinin production strains.