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Review
. 2019 May 20;24(10):1944.
doi: 10.3390/molecules24101944.

Quality and Authenticity Control of Functional Red Yeast Rice-A Review

Jiawen Song  1 , Jia Luo  2 , Zubing Ma  3 , Qiang Sun  4 , Chunjie Wu  5 , Xiaofang Li  6
Affiliations
Review

Quality and Authenticity Control of Functional Red Yeast Rice-A Review

Jiawen Song et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

Red yeast rice (RYR) is made by fermenting the rice with Monascus. It is commonly used in food colorants, dyeing, and wine making in China and its neighboring countries. Nowadays RYR has two forms on the market: common RYR is used for food products, the other form is functional RYR for medicine. However, some researchers reported that commercial lovastatin (structure is consistent with monacolin K) is illegally added to common RYR to meet drug quality standards, so as to imitate functional RYR and sell the imitation at a higher price. Based on current detection methods, it is impossible to accurately distinguish whether functional RYR is adulterated. Therefore, it is especially important to find a way to authenticate functional RYR. In the current review, the advances in history, applications, components (especially monacolins, monacolins detection methods), quality standards, authentication methods and perspectives for the future study of RYR are systematically reviewed.

Keywords: authentication methods; detection methods; functional RYR; monacolin K; quality standards.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The two structures of monacolin K. (a) the lactone form; (b) the acid form.
Figure 2
Figure 2
RYR effects on cholesterol biosynthesis.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The HMG-CoA reductase reaction and the competitive inhibition of monacolin K acid.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The biosynthetic pathway of Monacolin K. Abbreviations: SAM, S-Adenosyl methionine; R, 2-[(2R,4R)-4-hydroxy-6-oxo-2-tetrahydropyranyl]-ethyl.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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