Evaluation of mushrooms and fermented wheat grain for activity against colorectal cancer cells

BIDEGAIN, MAXIMILIANO ANDRÉS; POSTEMSKY, PABLO DANIEL; KACZOR, JOSEF; RZESKI, WOJCIECH

Conferencia; 11th International Medicinal Mushroom Conference; 2022

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cause of cancer in the world. It is known that there are some factors in the diet that can both increase and decrease the risk of CRC. That is why the use of natural chemopreventive agents from the diet to reverse, suppress or prevent carcinogenic progression is an interesting strategy worth studying.Within the edible mushrooms there are genera such as Grifola and Ganoderma with recognized medicinal properties. Various compounds obtained from these fungi have shown antiproliferative and antimetastatic properties against different lines of human cancer. Since mushrooms contain hundreds of bioactive compounds, they can act synergistically in multiple processes related to cancer.On the other hand, cereals, including wheat, are one of the main sources of food in the world. The fungal mycelium can grow and colonize cereal grains providing numerous potentially medicinal compounds, thus creating a new functional food in the process.The objectives of this study were to obtain and characterize wheat flours biotransformed by different species of Grifola and Ganoderma and evaluate their antitumor potential against different cancer cells.Two kinds of biomass sources were employed : fruiting bodies (FB) and mycelium biotransformed wheat grains (BWG). Twelve milled samples ( 1 commercially available Ganoderma lucidum (GL) FB, 2 Grifola frondosa (GF) BWG, 3 GL BWG, 4 wheat grains (control),5 Grifola sordulenta (GS) BWF, 6 Grifola gargal (GG) BWF, 7 GG FB,8-12 GL FB cultivated on sunflower or with rice side streams with different supplements) were produced by Cerzos-UNS/Conicet (Argentina).Twelve ethanolic extracts were prepared and evaluated for anticancer activity on human colon cancer cell model. Human colon adenocarcinoma HT-29 (ATCC, No HTB-38) and as a control normal human epithelial CCD841 CoTr (ATCC No CRL1807) were used for experiment.In order to examine the influence of ethanolic extracts on cell proliferation, the MTT method was used. A neutral red (NR, (3-amino-7-dimethylamino-2-methylphenasine hydrochloride) assay was performed to verify the toxicity of ethanolic extracts.Samples 8-12 obtained from Ganoderma lucidum E47, indicated the highest antiproliferative potential against colon cancer (HT-29 cells). However, similar activity occurs for normal CCD 841 CoTr colon cells. We observed a decrease in the viability of CCD 841 CoTr cells (at concentration above 100 micrograms/mL) for samples 8-12. Tested extracts exhibited low toxicity for tumor cells.An interesting fact is that all samples from supplemented G. lucidum (8-12) have higher anticancer activities than the commercially available mushroom (1) and control (4), and the best ratio between the antiproliferative activity against cancer and loss the viability of the normal cells.