Aschersonia and its teleomorph is one of important entomogenous fungi belonging to Clavicicipitaceae, Hypocreales, Sordariomycetes, Ascomycota. They can parasitize whiteflies and scale insects, and can be developed into an environmentally friendly biopesticide as well. Members of Aschersonia and its teleomorph are distributed widely in tropical and subtropical regions. The diversity of species, habitat, and ecological adaptation lead to the production of versatile metabolites with various chemical structures and biological activities, and they have become an important resource for discovering precursor of new drugs. Entomogenous fungi have developed unique characteristics of host adaptability and metabolic pathways, causing the chance increased to obtain new metabolites hopefully applied as therapeutic agents. Versatility metabolites including terpenoids, flavonoids, quinones, cyclic peptides and sterols had been isolated from Aschersonia and its teleomorph. These isolated constituents displayed multiple bioactivities such as antitumor, antimalarial, antimicrobial and insecticidal activities, which could be widely used in agriculture, industry and medical care. The important metabolites and their bioactivities from the fungi are summarized as reference data for development of new drugs.
A new species of Microstoma, M. radicatum, collected from Inner Mongolia, is described and illustrated. It is similar to M. protractum in gross morphology but differs in its larger asci (390-575×15-22.5µm) and ascospores [(25-)35- 50(-60)×(11-)12.5-20(-22.5)µm]. A key to the known species of the genus is provided. Type material is deposited in the Mycological Herbarium of Chifeng University, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, China and Herbarium Mycologicum Academiae Sinicae, Beijing, China.
Morphological characteristics of 27 species and varieties of Amanitaceae recorded in Flora Fungorum Sinicorun Vol. 27 including characteristics of volva, gill, basidium and so on are analyzed using principal component and cluster analysis. The 27 species and varieties are divided into four classes by cluster analysis. The results are consistent with general morphological identification of Amanita.
In this study, 168 samples were divided into eight geographic populations for analyzing the genetic structure of Ganoderma lingzhi by using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences. Thirty-nine haplotypes (H1-H39) were observed, showing a low level of genetic diversity (Hd=0.867±0.018, Pi=0.00304±0.00024). No significant differentiations were observed among different geographic populations. TCS haplotype network and phylogenetic analyses suggested that the genetic distance among populations was not correlated with the geographic distribution. The AMOVA analyses showed that genetic variation among populations accounted for 4.33%, and within population 95.67%, suggesting that genetic differentiation mainly occurred within populations. Neutrality test on all samples and each population showed that population expansion followed the neutral theory of molecular evolution and the population size remained relatively stable. The total fixation index (Fst) was 0.04331 and the gene flow (Nm) was 2.99. All the indexes indicated that a high level of gene exchange existed in different geographical populations, but genetic variation showed a low level, inferring that the population expansion history was short, and the distribution range was limited.
Anthranilate synthase TrpE, an important stress-induced protein in organisms, maintains the balance of metabolites related to organism survival as respond to stresses. In this study, Lentinula edodes strain S606 was treated as the tested strain and RNAi fragment. 395bp antisense fragment from the conserved domain of LetrpE was promoted dually. The vector was transferred to L. edodes mycelia via Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation method. Amplifying insert fragment, 11 positive transformants were gained. qRT-PCR result showed that the relative expression levels of two tranformants had approximate two and three-fold downregulation compared with those of wild type (WT) S606, indicating that they were RNAi transformants. After 24h 40°C heat stress, expression levels of LeTam-1, one protein relating to indole-3-acetic acid biosynthesis, were upregulation in WT S606 but downregulation in RNAi transformants; RNAi transformant mycelia could not regrow while WT could regrow. The results demonstrated that LetrpE function was related to L. edodes thermotolerance.
Although in nature fungi secrete laccases to digest lignin for source of carbon, practically the artificially purified laccase shows extremely low activity. In this study soluble compounds from cultivating compost, mycelia, and fruiting bodies of Pleurotus eryngii were extracted, and their regulation degree (RD%) for laccase-catalyzed reaction was measured. Potential mediator molecules from the most active components were searched by using HPLC-MS and metabolomics methods. It was found that the toluene-extract of compost (CTE) possessed the active mediators, and further comparative analysis revealed that the most active component CTE05 were rich in lignin-related metabolites involving the biosyntheses of suberin monomer, coumarin, eugenol-or-isoeugenol, plastoquinol-9, glucosinolate (from phenylalanine), and benzoate. The 11 potential mediator molecules were discussed in terms of similarity in physicochemical properties, including four ones which have been validated in previous literatures. Our study suggested that lignin biodegradation and biosynthesis might be related to each other in metabolism, and lignin-related metabolites might take part in fungal lignin digestion.
Agaricus sinodeliciosus, a wild huge edible mushroom collected from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, uncultivated before, has been successfully domesticated, and its biological characteristics were investigated for commercial cultivation in future. The optimal cultivation conditions include using glucose as carbon source and soy peptone as nitrogen source, and incubating at 25°C under pH value of 6. This species could be cultivated successfully by using rice straw, wheat straw or reed straw as substrate. The fruiting body formation of this mushroom unnecessitated casing soil, while other cultivated Agaricus species usually needed casing soil. The biological efficiency using reed straw as substrate is 15.01% higher than that using rice straw.
A wild mushroom collected from Xigaze of Tibet was identified as Pleurotus placentodes by morphological examination and molecular phylogenetic analysis used ITS sequences. This species was first recorded from China in 2016 by Liu et al. Artificial cultivation of a wild strain was successful, and its growth period was 80-95 days. Preliminary nutritional ingredient analysis indicates that P. placentodes has higher content of protein, polysaccharide and amino acid than common commercially cultivated mushrooms, such as Lentinula edodes, Pleurotus ostreatus, Flammulina velutipes and Cyclocybe aegerita. This species is especially rich in histidine, calcium, iron and zinc. Therefore, P. placentodes could be a new potential cultivated mushroom with specially nutritional values.
The investigation of overlapping sections of co-culturing Trichoderma virens and Suillus luteus under light microscope and scanning electron microscope (SEM) in vitro showed that the two species were not significantly affected in growth by each other. It seems that there was no mutual nutrient competition. For further revealing the interaction between T. virens and S. luteus, in vitro induction and biochemical methods were applied to detect the activities of polyphenol oxidase, chitinase, laccase and neutral protease of fermentation broth of S. luteus every day. It was showed that the addition of sterilized mycelia of T. virens to the fermentation broth of S. luteus resulted in evident increase of the laccase production of S. luteus, and the activities of polyphenol oxidase and laccase were kept at high levels during the whole investigating process. After six days, the activities of the two enzymes reached to the highest level, being 25.2U/mL and 1 580U/mL respectively. The activity of chitinase induced by sterilized T. virens mycelia was found to be instantaneous in S. luteus fermentation broth. Higher chitinase activity was detected on the second day in the co-culturing solution. The activity of neutral protease first increased but soon decreased. It is concluded that T. virens contributes the enhancement of enzyme activities of S. luteus, assisting in the establishment of mycorrhizal relationship between S. luteus and roots of Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica.
The plants of Jingxin 4 watermelon grafted with Jingxin 1 cucurbit (Lagenaria siceraria) rootstock (JX1), and those of Jingxin 4 watermelon grafted with Jingxin 2 pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima × Cucurbita moschata) rootstock were planted in continuous cropping watermelon soil, while plants of Jingxin 4 without grafting were set up as control. The experimental pots were inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) Funneliformis mosseae, Glomus versiforme, and Rhizophagus intraradices, while the pots without inoculation of AMF was set up as control. As compared with the control, the content of total N, available P, available K and organic matter in soil of all the treatments decreased, and soil pH increased. The quantity of >2mm and 2-0.25mm soil aggregates in the soil of grafted plants inoculated with AMF was greater than that in the soil of other treatments and the control, while the quantity of 0.25-0.053mm and <0.053mm soil aggregates in all the treatments was significantly lower than that in the control. Bacterium numbers in the soil of grafted plants inoculated with AMF were significantly higher than those in the soil of any other treatments, while the numbers of fungi in the treated soil were lower than those in the control. Soil actinomycete quantities in the soil of grafted plants inoculated with AMF were greater than those in the control. The activities of sucrase, polyphenol oxidase and urease in the soil of grafted plants inoculated with AMF were significantly higher than those in the soil of other treatments and the control. The effect of combination of grafting and AMF inoculation on improving soil fertilities and soil microbe status in continuous cropping soil of watermelon was greater as compared with any other single treatments.
The wild type strains OW7.8 and saccharopine reductase gene disruption mutant M1 of the endophytic fungus Alternaria oxytropis from Oxytropis glabra were selected as materials. Colony growth and swainsonine content were studied in different culture media and light conditions. The results showed that under darkness culture condition the fastest growth rate in OW7.8 reached (2.57±0.17)mm/d in carrot dextrose agar, while that in M1 reached (4.93±0.10)mm/d in potato dextrose agar. There was no significant difference in the content of swainsonine under different medium and light conditions in the same strain, either OW7.8 or M1 (P>0.05). However, there was significant difference in the content of swainsonine between OW7.8 and M1 under the same culture conditions (P<0.05).
Marine fungi are prolific in production of unique secondary metabolites with promising biological activities. In an effort to find the compounds with anti-Vibrio parahemolyticus activity from the fermentation broth of a marine fungal strain Penicillium chrysogenum LS16, the ethyl acetate extract were fractionated sequentially by silica gel VLC, Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography, and reversed-phase HPLC combined with bioassay-directed isolation. Five compounds were afforded, among them compound 2 displayed potent inhibition against Vibrio parahemolyticus. The structure of compound 2 was elucidated as an alkaloid on the basis of spectroscopic analysis (1H NMR and 13C NMR), which is in agreement with the molecular formula C15H15NO3.
The water extract and the immunological activity of the fruiting bodies of two different sporeless cultivars of Ganoderma lingzhi, Longzhi No. 2 (LZ) and Antler-shape G. lingzhi (LJ) were studied. The yield, content and molecular weight distribution of polysaccharides, as well as the content of nucleoside, protein and amino acid from LZ and LJ were analyzed by using a combination of chemical and instrumental analysis methods. Meanwhile, the release of NO from RAW 264.7 cells by the water extract were studied. The yield and content of polysaccharides in two sporeless G. lingzhi cultivars were similar, but HPSEC-MALLS-RI (high-performance size exclusion chromatography multi-angle laser light scattering-refractive index detector) analysis indicated that the molecular weight distribution of polysaccharides from LZ ranged from 4.825×105 to 2.021×106. Three high molecular weight fractions (Mw 2.021×106, 1.802×106 and 4.825×105, respectively) were present in LZ and only one high molecular weight fraction (Mw 1.589×104) was present in LJ. The species of nucleosides in both of them were similar, but the content of nucleosides was different. The content of protein in LJ and LZ were 10.70% and 10.32%, respectively. Histidine was not existed in both of them. The contents of methionine in LJ and LZ were 2.556% and 2.591%, respectively. The aqueous extract obtained from LJ and LZ stimulated the release of NO from RAW 264.7 cells.
Edible and medicinal mushrooms have been identified as remarkable therapeutic agents in traditional Chinese medicines and as culinary products all over the world. However, the ingredients responsible for their bioactive effects have not been fully investigated. In this study, we investigated glucose- and lipid-lowering activities of n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and methanol extract of mycelia from six mycelium powder from Cephalosporium sinensis, Mortierella hepiali, Hericium erinaceus, Ganoderma lingzhi, Armillaria mellea and Antrodia cinnamomea. Their activities of lowering glucose and lipid were evaluated via insulin-induced insulin resistance model and oleic acid (OA)-induced triglycerides (TGs) deposition in human hepatoma cell line HepG-2 cells. Of the 24 extract at nontoxic concentrations (<300μg/mL), n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and methanol extract from H. erinaceus and G. lingzhi and n-hexane extract from C. sinensis dose-dependently increased the consumption of glucose in HepG-2 cells; n-hexane, ethyl acetate, and methanol extract from C. sinensis, n-hexane, ethyl acetate extract from G. lingzhi and n-hexane extract from M. hepiali dose-dependently inhibited OA-induced TGs production. These results indicated that medicinal mushrooms could be applied as protective agents against glucose and lipid metabolism disorders.
