摘要
幾丁質主要是存在於水生甲殼類動物之外殼和昆蟲之外骨骼中，而在大多數接合菌綱的真菌細胞壁中亦含有幾丁質和／或幾丁聚醣。在接合菌綱的菌絲壁中含有大量帶陽離子的幾丁聚醣，可中和並與含陰離子的酸性多醣體結合。近年來，幾丁質、幾丁聚醣及其衍生物已廣泛的使用在工業、食品和醫藥的應用上。目前工業化大量製造幾丁質的方式，是利用蝦或蟹的外殼作為原料，經過去蛋白質和去鈣質等步驟來萃取之，再以高溫高濃度鹼液進行去乙醘基反應後得幾丁專醣。可是，這種幾丁聚醣的生產製程有許多缺點，例如，會產生大量的廢棄物而造成環境的污染。再者，這些原料的供應均會受到不同季節的影響而很不穩定，此外，這種起始原料的自然變異性會導致其衍生產品的品質亦具有明顯的多變性。為瞭解決上述的問題並獲得品質一致的幾丁聚醣，許多研究人員進行以絲狀真菌來生產幾丁聚醣的研究，結果，從毛黴科中挑選出多株可作為生產幾丁聚醣的菌種，在完成125株菌的篩選後，發現能產生最多量幾丁聚醣的菌屬均為Absidia，除此以外，菌屬Rhizopus、 Mucor或Gongronella亦含有明顯的幾丁聚醣量，在美國專利5, 232, 842中，即使用Absidia coerulea在含有葡萄糖、酵母抽出物、麥芽抽出物、peptone和硫酸鎂的培養液中進行幾丁聚醣的生產。這種真菌幾丁聚醣在醫藥及食品上有很特殊的應用價值。
並列摘要
Chitin is commonly found in the exoskeletons of marine invertebrates and cuticles of insects. It is also present in the cell wall of most Zygomycetes as chitin and/or chitosan. The high chitosan content of the walls of the zygomycete fungi provides a natural cation to balance and bind with the glucuronate anion of acidic polysaccharides. Both chitosan, chitin and their derivatives have recently been used to a wide variety of industrial, food and biomedical applications. At present, chitin is industrially manufactured by the process of deproteination and decalcification using shells of crabs or shrimps as raw materials. Chitosan is then obtained by deacetylating chitin with heated, concentrated caustic alkali solution. This chitosan production process has a number of unfavorable characteristics. For example, the process produces large amounts of waste material causing environmental stress. In addition to this, the supply of raw materials is highly dependent upon seasonal factors and is highly unstable. Moreover, the quality of the derived product may vary significantly due to the inherent variability of the starting material. To circumvent the aforementioned problems and obtain chitosan with consistant quality, researchers have investigated the possibility of producing chitosan using filamentous fungi. Species from family Mucoraceae were selectively chosen for chitosan production. After screening a total of 125 strains, the highest chitosan productivity strains were found to belong to the genus Absidia. In addition, various genus Rhizopus, Mucor, and Gongronella also contained significant quantities of chitosan. In US patent No.5, 232, 842, Absidia coerulea was used for chitosan production with a culture medium containing glucose, yeast extract, malt extract, peptone and magnesium sulfate. These fungal chitosan has specific advantages for use in pharmaceuticals and food.