he orange pigment was produced by growing Monascus ruber CCT 3802 in the Bioflo III with the pH maintained at 3.0. Under these conditions the pigment has low solubility in the culture medium (crystals). After 96 h of growth, the fermentation was stopped and the biomass and pigments were separated from the liquid media by filtration. The pigment retained on Whatman no 1 filter paper (Madiston, England) was washed with distilled water and the orange pigment was dissolved in 95% ethanol (v/v) and the biomass was discarded. The alcoholic solution of orange pigment was submitted to crystallization by adding water in the proportion of 1:3 and refrigerating at −20 °C for 2 h, followed by filtration through Whatman no 1 filter paper (Madiston, England). The filtrate was discarded and the solid orange pigment stored at −20 °C. The solid pigment was used to prepare pigment solutions with absorbance of around 1.0 unit at 470 nm