Introducing a novel mushroom from mycophagy community with emphasis on biomedical potency

Abstract

Mushrooms have been prized by humankind as medicine and culinary wonder since antiquity. Though several species are ethnically valued; many prospective species are still being discovered. One such wild macrofungus has recently been discovered during subsequent field surveys in West Bengal, India which in turn exposed as a traditionally consumed popular myco-food. The collected taxon was found to be unique with regard to its morphological as well as genetical features. After detailed characterizations, the fungus was identified as a novel taxon belonging to the genus Russula (Russulaceae, Basidiomycota). Besides, the investigation was further extended in search of new functional ingredients and in this context, a water soluble crude polysaccharide rich extract (Rusalan) was isolated from dried basidiocarps. Accumulating evidences from GC-MS, HPTLC, FT-IR along with several spectrophotometric methods postulated that the fraction consisted mainly of carbohydrate in triple helical conformation, where glucose was the major monosaccharide mostly with β-type glycosidic linkage. Conversely, Rusalan showed pronounced antioxidant activity in six in vitro assay systems with EC50 value ranging from 190–1328 μg/ml concentration. The crude polysaccharide was also evaluated against six bacterial strains using microdilution method and the growth of Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis were found to be inhibited effectively. In addition, immune-stimulatory assays demonstrated that Rusalan could evidently promote proliferation, induce phagocytosis, release NO, produce intracellular ROS and upregulate mRNA expression of iNOS, TNF-α, COX-2, as well as IL-6 genes in in mouse macrophage cells. Therefore, aim of the present study was not only to describe a new taxon to the world mycoflora but also to introduce a potent therapeutic agent that could be explored for food and pharmaceutical purposes. However, isolation of active component and in vivo studies need to be designed further.

Crude polysaccharide from a wild mushroom enhances immune response in murine macrophage cells by TLR/NF-κB pathway

“…Firstly, chemical parameters of MLHWP were analysed spectroscopically which can be ranked in the following order: carbohydrates > protein (Table ). Carbohydrates, especially β‐glucan constituted the major proportion of this crude polysaccharide and its relative composition of is very much allied with previous published research findings on Russula alatoreticula , Macrocybe gigantea , Lentinus squarrosulus , Ganoderma applanatum and others.…”

“…When macrophages encounter foreign stimulus they become activated and undergo morphological changes along with cell enlargement. Several markers have been recognized as a positive sign of macrophage activation such as formation of vacuoles within the cytoplasm, lamellipodia generation and conversion of roundish cell shape to dendritic morphology . In the present study, to further confirm proliferation assay, morphological alterations of macrophages after polysaccharide treatment was determined.…”

“…The whole solution was kept at 4 °C for overnight. On the next day, the extract was centrifuged at 13000 g at 4 °C for 10 min and the pellet obtained after centrifugation was washed two times with ethanol as well as acetone to obtain hot water‐soluble crude polysaccharide (MLHWP) …”

“…Glucan, carbohydrate and protein contents were estimated using mushroom β‐glucan assay kit and spectrophotometric methods, respectively . Carbohydrate and protein content were measured by phenol‐sulfuric acid method and Bradford reagent, Glucose and BSA used as standards, respectively.…”

Water Soluble Antioxidative Crude Polysaccharide From Russula senecis Elicits TLR Modulated NF-κB Signaling Pathway and Pro-inflammatory Response in Murine Macrophages

“…Further, absolute predominance of β-glucan in Rusenan was detected as total glucan, β-glucan and α-glucan content were 15.63 ± 2.49, 12.11 ± 0.28, and 3.52 ± 2.51 g/100g dry polysaccharide, respectively. Comparative study with previous literature indicated that R. senecis might be consisted of more carbohydrate than that of R. alatoreticula (Khatua et al, 2017a), T. eurhizus (Chatterjee et al, 2013) and Schizophyllum commune (Klaus et al, 2011). Besides, the content of β-glucan as well as α-glucan were found to be in higher amount than that of Pleurotus florida (Saha et al, 2013) while the extent of protein was better than the hot water extract from Ganoderma lucidum and Agaricus bisporus (Kozarski et al, 2011).…”