INSTITUTUL NAÅ¢IONAL DE CERCETARE-DEZVOLTARE - ICECHIM

3. Chemistry in medical and pharmaceutical applications - ONEW FUNGAL POLYSACCHARIDES WITH ANTITUMOR PROPERTIESIoana Nicu, Gheorghe StoianDepartment of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biology, University ofBucharest, no. 91-95, Splaiul Independentei, sector 5, postal code 050095, Bucharest,Romania.Fungal polysaccharides have been studied for many years, especially in countries likeJapan or China where mushrooms were used in traditional medicine in the treatment ofhepatitis, hypercholesterolemia and cancer 1 . Those studies showed also, that manypolysaccharides possess antitumor properties and have a low cytotoxic effect on normaltissues 2 . Therefore, we investigated the biological effects of some new compounds isolatedfrom two species of edible mushrooms that are native to our country. Thus, we extractedpolysaccharides from Cantharellus cibarius and Craterellus cornucopioides, the first onecame from Covasna County and was harvested in June, 2011 while the latest was purchasedfrom Carnic prod SRL Târgovişte.Polysaccharides were obtained using the protocol described by Mizuno et al. 3 ; theirpurity and molecular mass were determined using liquid chromatography and their sugarcontent was assayed by TLC after trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) hydrolysis. Caco-2 cell line (anepithelium adenocarcinoma cells) was used in order to determine antitumor effects of thisnew compounds.Our research concluded that these two polysaccharides have similar molecular weight;they contain glucose and arabinose, are resistant to hydrolysis with sulfuric acid, but areeasily hydrolyzed with TFA.MTT tests showed that both polysaccharides possess maximum of antitumor effectson Caco-2 cell line after 48 h at 1 mg/ml (Cantharellus cibarius) and 0.2 mg/ml (Craterelluscornucopioides) respectively.