Monday, August 2, 2010
Pacific Concourse (Hyatt Regency San Francisco)
Investigations of fungal diversity in freshwater have shown the abundance of fungal species in tropical and subtropical regions. Taiwan presents unique topography with numerous rivers and streams where rich and diverse freshwater fungi could be found. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antitumor activity of fermented products from the freshwater fungi collected from Taiwan. Twenty species including eight ascomycetes and twelve hyphomycetes were selected and fermented in solid and/or liquid medium at 25 oC for 7, 14 and/or 28 days. The fermented products were evaluated their inhibition activity to several human cancer cell proliferations by MTT assay. The results showed that solid fermented products presented better antitumor activity than liquid fermented ones in most strains. Seven strains showed well inhibition activity to all test cancer cell lines. This study indicated that the metabolites from freshwater fungi could be the potential candidates for cancer therapy. We believed that freshwater fungi might have the great potential on pharmaceutical industry.