Jin Kwon Ahn

Ergothioneine Contents in Fruiting Bodies and Their Enhancement in Mycelial Cultures by the Addition of Methionine

Abstract The levels of ergothioneine (ERG), which have been shown to act as an excellent antioxidant, were determined in both fruiting bodies and mycelia of various mushroom species. We found that ERG accumulated at different levels in fruiting bodies of mushrooms and showed up to a 92.3-fold difference between mushrooms. We also found that ERG accumulated at higher levels in mycelia than in fruiting bodies of economically important mushroom species such as Ganoderma neo-japonicum, G applanatum and Paecilomyces tenuipes. The addition of 2 mM methionine (Met) to mycelial culture medium increased the ERG contents in most mushroom species tested, indicating that Met is a good additive to enhance the ERG levels in a variety of mushroom species. Taking these results into consideration, we suggest that the addition of Met to the mycelial culture medium is an efficient way to enhance the antioxidant properties in economically important mushroom species.

Improvement of Ergone Production from Mycelial Culture of Polyporus umbellatus.

Ergone, a fungal metabolite derived from ergosterol, was previously isolated and identified from Polyporus umbellatus. Ergone is a major component of P. umbellatus known to have anti-aldosteronic diuretic effect and also displays cytotoxic activities. Most of mushroom’s fruit bodies used for test contained less than 10 μg/g of ergone. But P. umbellatus have larger amount of ergone than any other mushrooms. In order to improve the ergone production from the submerged culture of P. umbellatus, several factors including medium composition, culture conditions (temperature and pH) and different combinations of co-cultivation with various mycelia were studied. Among various carbon sources examined, starch proved to be most effective for the production of mycelia. The optimum pH and temperature for a flask culture of P. umbellatus mycelia were found to be 4.5 and 25°C, respectively. Under the optimized culture conditions, both the ergone production (86.9 μg/g) and mycelial growth (3.5 g/l) increased when P. umbellatus was cultured with Armillariella mellea. When the optimized conditions were applied, both mycelium and ergone production were significantly enhanced.