Characterization of Aspergillus Carbonarius Mutant in Relation to Carotenoid Production and its Application.

The fungus Aspergillus produces several metabolites that are either primary or
secondary. Enzymes which are primary metabolites of Aspergillus have found
applications in food and beverage industries. While secondary metabolites like
aflatoxins and mycotoxins are detrimental some of the antibiotics like penicillic acid
and mellein have found pharmaceutical applications for treating Mycobacterial and
Staphylococcal infections.
Development of Aspergillus strains for metabolite production has been known
for long. Essentially, strain improvement programme aims to refine fungal growth
under defined fermentor conditions. Invariably, such studies concentrate on the
product of interest in relation to increased productivity under growth in cheap media
conditions.
Aspergillus carbonarius has been used as a fungus for industrial
polygalacturonase production. Strain improvement focused on obtaining higher
enzyme productivity resulted in variants secreting another metabolite that had both
food and pharmaceutical applications.