MICROORGANISM HAVING HIGH PRODUCTIVITY OF THIOL PROTEASE INHIBITING SUBSTANCES, PROCESS FOR PRODUCING THE SUBSTANCES USING THE MICROORGANISM, PROCESS FOR PRODUCING FOOD USING THE SUBSTANCES AND QUALITY IMPROVING AGENT COMPRISING THE SUBSTANCES

摘要

A microorganism capable of producing thiol protease inhibiting substances in high yield is provided, which belongs to the genus Aspergillus, such as A. oryzae or A. sojae. The inhibiting substances can be produced by culturing the microorganism on rice alone or in a ricesupplemented medium and recovering it from the culture in a high concentration, wherein the process may further comprise a step of heat treating a water extract or a culture filtrate of the culture, allowing the treated liquid to contact with a nonionic porous adsorption resin, thereby effecting adsorption of the inhibiting substances to the resin, and subsequently recovering the inhibiting substances adsorbed to the resin. Raw fish meat pastes or fish paste products can be produced by adding the inhibiting substances obtained by the above process to a raw material fish meat. A quality improving agent of food or seafood products that cannot be processed into high quality products due to thiol protease, which comprises the thiol protease inhibiting substances are further provided.