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International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms

ISSN for PRINT: 1521-9437

Institutional price:	$538.00
Issues per year:	4

Best Paper Award Selection - Editorial Board Site

2001, Volume3

76 pages

Issue price - $128.00

Changes in Immunomodulating Activities and Content of Antitumor Polysaccharides During the Growth of Two Medicinal Mushrooms, Lentinus edodes (Berk.) Sing, and Grifola frondosa (Dicks.: Fr.) S. F. Gray

Ken-ichiro Minato
School of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, Miyagi University, Sendai 982-0215, Japan

Masashi Mizuno
Faculty of Agriculture, Kobe University; and Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kobe University, Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan

Sachiko Kawakami
Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan

Shigenobu Tatsuoka
Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kobe University, Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan

Yutaka Denpo
Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kobe University, Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan

Keisuke Tokimoto
Faculty of Agriculture, Kobe University, Kobe; and The Tottori Mycological Institute, 211, Kokoge, Tottri 689-1125, Japan

Hironobu Tsuchida
Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kobe University, Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan

ABSTRACT

The immunomodulating effects of the growing medicinal mushrooms Lentinus edodes and Grifola frondosa on tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and nitric oxide (NO) production from murine peritoneal macro-phages were investigated. The weight of the L. edodes fruiting body in this study increased from 9 g to 18 g during growth, and that of G. frondosa increased from 130 g to 200 g. L edodes increased TNF-α production from approximately 500 pg/ml to 700 pg/ml and NO production from 4 μM to 7 μM. Thereafter, it finally decreased TNF-α levels to 500 pg/ml and NO to 5 μM through the growth periods. The growing G. frondosa increased TNF-α production from approximately 300 pg/ml to 500 pg/ml, which finally decreased to 260 pg/ml. NO production increased from 5 to 7 μM, and finally declined to 4 μM during growth. Moreover, to clarify whether these changes in immunomodulating activities of the two mushrooms resulted from changes in antitumor polysaccharides, we examined the contents of lentinan in L. edodes and glucan in G. frondosa (GGF) in the growing mushrooms, respectively, by enzyme-linked imnuinosorbent assay (ELISA). The content of lentinan increased to 1.5 mg/g fresh weight (f.w.), and thereafter finally decreased to 1.1 mg/g f.w. during growth of L. edodes. The content of GGF increased to 2.7 mg/g f.w., but finally decreased to 1.3 mg/g f.w. during growth of G. frondosa. These results suggested that a suitable period in which to harvest the mushroom at its peak antitumor activity was found.