Center for Experimental Biology, National Center for Technological Progress, Ministry of Science and Technology, C6 Thanh Xuan Bac, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi, Viet Nam.
Institute of Molecular Physiology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.
Arch Microbiol. 2024 Feb 13;206(3):97. doi: 10.1007/s00203-024-03833-8.
Cordyceps militaris is a well-known medicinal mushroom in Asian countries. This edible fungus has been widely exploited for traditional medicine and functional food production. C. militaris is a heterothallic fungus that requires both the mating-type loci, MAT1-1 and MAT1-2, for fruiting body formation. However, recent studies also indicated two groups of C. militaris, including monokaryotic strains carrying only MAT1-1 in their genomes and heterokaryotic strains harboring both MAT1-1 and MAT1-2. These strain groups are able to produce fruiting bodies under suitable cultivating conditions. In previous work, we showed that monokaryotic strains are more stable than heterokaryotic strains in fruiting body formation through successive culturing generations. In this study, we report a high cordycepin-producing monokaryotic C. militaris strain (HL8) collected in Vietnam. This strain could form normal fruiting bodies with high biological efficiency and contain a cordycepin content of 14.43 mg/g lyophilized fruiting body biomass. The ethanol extraction of the HL8 fruiting bodies resulted in a crude extract with a cordycepin content of 69.15 mg/g. Assays of cytotoxic activity on six human cancer cell lines showed that the extract inhibited the growth of all these cell lines with the IC values of 6.41-11.51 µg/mL. Notably, the extract significantly reduced cell proliferation and promoted apoptosis of breast cancer cells. Furthermore, the extract also exhibited strong antifungal activity against Malassezia skin yeasts and the citrus postharvest pathogen Penicillium digitatum. Our work provides a promising monokaryotic C. militaris strain as a bioresource for medicine, cosmetics, and fruit preservation.
蛹虫草是亚洲国家著名的药用蘑菇。这种可食用的真菌已被广泛开发用于传统医学和功能性食品生产。蛹虫草是一种异型真菌，需要交配型基因座 MAT1-1 和 MAT1-2 才能形成子实体。然而，最近的研究也表明蛹虫草有两个群体，包括基因组中只携带 MAT1-1 的单核菌株和同时携带 MAT1-1 和 MAT1-2 的异核菌株。这些菌株组能够在合适的培养条件下产生子实体。在之前的工作中，我们表明单核菌株在子实体形成过程中的稳定性高于异核菌株。在这项研究中，我们报告了一种来自越南的高产蛹虫草素单核菌株（HL8）。该菌株能够形成正常的子实体，具有较高的生物效率，其冻干子实体生物量中的蛹虫草素含量为 14.43mg/g。HL8 子实体的乙醇提取物产生了一种含有 69.15mg/g 蛹虫草素的粗提取物。对六种人癌细胞系的细胞毒性活性测定表明，该提取物对所有这些细胞系的生长均有抑制作用，IC 值为 6.41-11.51µg/mL。值得注意的是，该提取物显著降低了乳腺癌细胞的增殖并促进了其凋亡。此外，该提取物还对皮肤真菌马拉色菌和柑橘采后病原菌青霉菌具有很强的抗真菌活性。我们的工作提供了一种有前途的单核蛹虫草菌株，可作为药物、化妆品和水果保鲜的生物资源。
