RT Journal Article ID 1af485045b17e424 A1 Lee, Shiuh-Sheng A1 Lee, Po-Lei A1 Chen, Chieh-Fu A1 Wang, Sheng-Yuan A1 Chen, Kuang-Yao T1 Antitumor Effects of Polysaccharides of Ganoderma lucidum (Curt.:Fr.) P. Karst. (Ling Zhi, Reishi Mushroom) (Aphyllophoromycetideae) JF International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms JO IJM YR 2003 FD 2003-03-01 VO 5 IS 1 OP 16 AB Ganoderma lucidum has been established to be an antitumor natural product. Hot-water extracts of the mycelium of G. lucidum (GLP) exhibited antitumor effect against fibrosarcoma in male and female C3H mice and inhibited the metastasis of the tumor to the lung. Moreover, we have fractionated GLP into polysaccharide fraction [GLP(AI)] and nonpolysaccharide fraction. We found that GLP(AI) is the major component to show the in vivo antitumor effect on fibrosarcoma growth in C3H mice. The effect of PS-G purified from GLP(AI) by Sephadex and ion-exchange column chromatography on the induction of differentiation in leukemic U937 cells was examined. We found that it could stimulate blood mononuclear cells to secrete cytokines, TNF-a, IFN-g, IL-1b, and IL-6, etc., which were both antiproliferative and differentiation-inductive to the leukemic U937 and HL-60 cells. TNF-a and IFN-g, especially, induced apoptosis and differentiation in the treated leukemic cells. Furthermore, antitumor activity of G. lucidum on intraperitioneally implanted Lewis lung carcinoma in syngeneic C57BL/6 mice was investigated. The results showed that GLP significantly increased the lifespan of tumor-implanted mice, when administered intraperioneally alone or in combination with cytotoxic antitumor drugs (adriamycin, fluorouracil, thioguanine, methotrexate, or cisplatin) or a synthetic immunomodulator (imexon). The GLP was not cytotoxic to cultured cells, and the antitumor activity was abolished by pretreatment of mice with cyclosporine. These observations suggest that GLP exerts its antitumor effect mainly through immunopotentiation of the tumor-bearing animals. PB Begell House LK https://www.dl.begellhouse.com/journals/708ae68d64b17c52,58cadf0c6c913237,1af485045b17e424.html