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Cultivation and Utility of Piptoporus betulinus Fruiting Bodies as a Source of Anticancer Agents

Summary

Researchers successfully developed a method to grow medicinal birch bracket mushrooms indoors and showed that extracts from these cultivated mushrooms have strong anti-cancer properties. This breakthrough could lead to more reliable production of natural cancer-fighting compounds. Impacts on everyday life: – Provides a sustainable source of potentially valuable anti-cancer medicines – Makes medicinal mushroom compounds more widely available for research and treatment – Demonstrates the possibility of standardizing natural medicine production – Could reduce reliance on wild-harvested medicinal mushrooms – Opens possibilities for developing new cancer treatments from natural sources

Background

Piptoporus betulinus is a wood-rotting basidiomycete fungus commonly known as the Birch bracket or Birch polypore that has been traditionally used in folk medicine. It grows naturally on birch trees and produces bioactive compounds with medicinal properties, particularly anticancer activities. However, no indoor cultivation method had previously been developed for producing its fruiting bodies.

Objective

To develop a method for indoor cultivation of P. betulinus fruiting bodies and evaluate if extracts from cultivated fruiting bodies have comparable anticancer properties to those from wild specimens.

Results

Only one strain (PB01) successfully produced mature fruiting bodies, with optimal results on substrates containing 55-65% moisture and 25-35% organic supplementation. Biological efficiency ranged from 12-16%. Both water and ethanol extracts showed antiproliferative and antimigrative effects against cancer cells, with ethanol extracts from cultivated specimens demonstrating the strongest anticancer activity.

Conclusion

P. betulinus can be successfully cultivated indoors on supplemented birch sawdust substrate to produce fruiting bodies. Extracts from cultivated specimens showed comparable or superior anticancer properties compared to wild specimens, suggesting potential for standardized production of medicinal compounds.
  • Published in:World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology,
  • Study Type:Experimental Research,
  • Source: 10.1007/s11274-016-2114-4
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