The Genome of the Medicinal Macrofungus Sanghuang Provides Insights Into the Synthesis of Diverse Secondary Metabolites

Abstract

The mushroom, Sanghuang is widely used in Asian countries. This medicinal fungus produces diverse bioactive compounds and possesses a potent ability to degrade the wood of the mulberry tree. However, the genes, pathways, and mechanisms that are involved in the biosynthesis of the active compounds and wood degradation by Sanghuang mushroom are still unknown. Here, we report a 34.5 Mb genome-encoding 11,310 predicted genes-of this mushroom. About 16.88% (1909) of the predicted genes have been successfully classified as EuKaryotic Orthologous Groups, and approximately 27.23% (665) of these genes are involved in metabolism. Additionally, a total of 334 genes encoding CAZymes-and their characteristics-were compared with those of the other fungi. Homologous genes involved in triterpenoid, polysaccharide, and flavonoid biosynthesis were identified, and their expression was examined during four developmental stages, 10 and 20 days old mycelia, 1 year old and 3 years old fruiting bodies. Importantly, the lack of chalcone isomerase 1 in the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway suggested that different mechanisms were used in this mushroom to synthesize flavonoids than those used in plants. In addition, 343 transporters and 4 velvet family proteins, involved in regulation, uptake, and redistribution of secondary metabolites, were identified. Genomic analysis of this fungus provides insights into its diverse secondary metabolites, which would be beneficial for the investigation of the medical applications of these pharmacological compounds in the future.

Culinary–medicinal mushrooms: a review of organic compounds and bioelements with antioxidant activity

“…However, as a multitude of studies have been carried out on the presence of these compounds in the fruiting bodies of mushrooms and determined their content, it should be assumed that flavonoids occur in many representatives of the fungal kingdom. In the recent work authored by Shao et al [62] seven core genes which are involved in the biosynthesis of flavonoids in Sanghuangporus sanghuang were found.…”

ITS barcoding-based species identification for Sanghuangporus (Basidiomycota), a genus of medicinal mushrooms

“…Most of these sequences were submitted by non-taxonomists. One typical case is a recently published paper on genome sequencing of "Sanghuang" that meanwhile submitted six ITS sequences to GenBank (Shao et al 2020). In GenBank, all these six sequences were labeled as Inonotus sp.…”

“…Normally, it is impossible to rapidly determine which species such kind of commercial products really represents. Like other medicinal mushrooms (Raja et al 2017), species names of Sanghuangporus are sometimes misapplied to certain products of "Sanghuang" (Shao et al 2020). This confused situation to some extent restricts the industrial development of "Sanghuang" (Zhou 2020).…”

“…As a hot topic, transdisciplinary studies on Sanghuangporus have been performed to promote the utilization of these medicinal resources (Zhou et al 2016;Cai et al 2019;Zhu et al 2019;Shao et al 2020). Most of this kind of medicinal studies try to identify their materials via BLAST search of GenBank (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/) with ITS barcoding region as a query.…”

Safety evaluation of aqueous extracts of Sanghuangporus vaninii fruiting body in Sprague–Dawley rats

“…Although no evidence suggested Sanghuang had toxic effects, and the safety of S. linteus mycelia had been evaluated (Li, Chen, Sheu, Huang, & Chen, 2020). Some researches showed the fruiting body had higher medicinal effect (Huo et al., 2020; Shao et al., 2019). However, the safety of Sanghuang fruiting body had not been evaluated.…”