Apoptotic properties of polysaccharide isolated from fruiting bodies of medicinal mushroom Fomes fomentarius in human lung carcinoma cell line

Mushrooms are known to complement chemotherapy and radiation therapy by countering the side effects of cancer. Recently, there has been great interest in isolation of novel bioactive compounds from mushrooms due to their numerous health beneficial effects. Chemically water-extractable polysaccharide (MFKF-AP1 beta), with a molecular weight of 12 kDa, was isolated from fruiting bodies of mushroom Fomes fomentarius. In this research, we investigated the anti-tumor effects of MFKF-AP1 beta on human lung carcinoma A549 cells. Results showed that MFKF-AP1 beta markedly inhibited A549 cell growth in a dose-dependent manner based on the amount of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) released and morphological alterations. In addition, MFKF-AP1 beta induced cellular apoptosis by causing single-stranded DNA breakage, as evidenced by apoptosis assay. Furthermore, MFKF-AP1b (25-100 mu g/ml) significantly induced single-stranded DNA breakage in A549 cells, as shown by comet assay. Taken together, our results demonstrate that MFKF-AP1 beta has strong anti-tumor effects mediated through induction of apoptosis. Therefore, MFKF-AP1 beta could be useful in lung chemotherapy. (C) 2014 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.