Optimization of liquid culture conditions of Philippine wild edible mushrooms as potential source of bioactive lipids

With remarkable bioactivities and delightful taste, mushrooms have been a commercial nutraceutical around the world. Mushrooms are cultivated on solid materials. Here we report the successful cultivation of four Philippine edible mushrooms in liquid medium. This work highlights the optimal liquid culture conditions with reference to the nutritional and physical growth factors, and preliminarily elucidated their wide variety of lipids by thin-layer chromatography. Sabouraud dextrose broth (SDB) was the most suitable culture medium for all studied mushrooms. Maximum mycelial biomasses of Ganoderma lucidum, Pleurotus cystidiosus, Volvariella volvacea and Schizophyllum commune favorably produced in SDB at pH 7, 7, 6 and 8, respectively, when incubated at 28 °C and 30 °C as optimum temperatures. The mycelia biomass yields obtained in the present study 0.8 g/30 ml are superior to the reported biomass yields of other basidiomycetes such as Russula sp. and Pycnoporus cinnabarinus at 0.3 g/50 ml (Shittu et al., 2005). Agitation did not improved mycelial growth of mushrooms except G. lucidum, which the biomass yield was peaked at 100 rpm (500 ml medium in 2.8 L) shake-flask culture. Cholesterol, triglycerides, free fatty acids, and polar lipids were detected in all the four mushrooms. The potential biological activities as well as molecular species of these lipid materials from the four basidiomycetes are currently under investigation.