While plant-derived foods do not contain vitamin B
12, some fermented plant-derived foods contain small amounts of vitamin B
12. However, it is unknown whether
bettara-zuke and
malted rice, which are fermented plant-derived foods using
Aspergillus oryzae, contain vitamin B
12 compounds. Therefore, we determined vitamin B
12 content in
bettara-zuke and
malted rice using high-performance liquid chromatography after immunoaffinity purification of vitamin B
12 extracted from them. Then, we identified vitamin B
12 compounds contained in the purified samples using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The results showed that
bettara-zuke and
malted rice contained small amounts of vitamin B
12 and that the vitamin B
12 compound contained in them was physiologically active vitamin B
12. This study is the first to report that fermented plant-based foods which are made using koji mold, contain trace amounts of physiologically active B
12.
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