Dongguan Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine, School of Public Health, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, Guangdong, 523808, People's Republic of China.
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Resources and Coastal Engineering/South China Sea Bioresource Exploitation and Utilization Collaborative Innovation Center, School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510006, People's Republic of China.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 10;7(1):7789. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-08198-1.
For more than one thousand years, Cordyceps sinensis has been revered as a unique halidom in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau for its mysterious life history and predominant medicinal values. This mysterious fungus-larva symbiote also attracted the over-exploitation, while several problems on the initial colonization of Ophiocordyceps sinensis in the host larva have constrained artificial cultivation. In this work, stable carbon isotope analysis was employed to analyse the subsamples of C. sinensis from 5 representative habitats. The results demonstrated that these samples possessed similar δC profiles, i.e., a steady ascending trend from the top to the bottom of stroma, occurrence of the δC maximum at the head, a slight decrease from the head to the end of thorax, a sharply descent trend from the end of thorax to the forepart of abdomen, and maintenance of lower δC values in the rest parts of abdomen. Based on the data, we consider that the site near the head of the host larva may be the initial target attacked by O. sinensis, and the fungus growth is closely related to the digestive tract of its host larva. The growth stages of O. sinensis are accordingly speculated as the symptom-free, symptom-appearing, and stroma-germinating stages.
一千多年来，由于其神秘的生活史和卓越的药用价值，冬虫夏草在青藏高原被视为独特的灵丹妙药。这种神秘的菌-虫共生体也吸引了过度开采，而在宿主幼虫中最初定植冬虫夏草的几个问题限制了人工栽培。在这项工作中，我们采用稳定碳同位素分析方法对来自 5 个代表性栖息地的冬虫夏草样本进行了分析。结果表明，这些样品具有相似的 δC 分布模式，即从菌核顶部到底部呈稳定上升趋势，在头部出现 δC 最大值，从头部到胸部末端略有下降，从胸部末端到腹部前段呈急剧下降趋势，腹部其余部分保持较低的 δC 值。基于这些数据，我们认为宿主幼虫头部附近的部位可能是被冬虫夏草最初攻击的目标，真菌的生长与宿主幼虫的消化道密切相关。因此，推测冬虫夏草的生长阶段为无症状期、症状出现期和菌核萌发期。
