Changyang Ma
Zhenhua Liu
Shiming Li
Fatma M. El-Demerdash- 1National Research and Development Center for Edible Fungus Processing Technology, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
- 2College of Agriculture, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
- 3Joint International Research Laboratory of Food and Medicine Resource Function of Henan Province, Kaifeng, China
- 4Department of Environmental Studies, Institute of Graduate Studies and Research, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
Editorial on the Research Topic
Comprehensive mechanism of edible fungus polysaccharide in immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, and hypoglycaemic effect
Edible fungi have been used as food and herbal medicine for centuries all over the world, particularly in China and several other Southeast Asia countries. Recently, it has been attracting great attentions for its multiple components and various nutritional and medicinal values on health-promoting effects. Polysaccharide is one of the major components in edible fungus and a growing number of researches has been performed on their bioactivities, such as antioxidant, anti-tumor, immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, hypoglycaemic effect, and relieving constipation among others. However, more attention should be paid for extensive and detailed research in fungus polysaccharides to overcome difficulties in elucidating the complicated chemical structures of these polysaccharides, determining their corresponding biological activities and underlying mechanisms, and establishing the structure-activity relationship (SAR) (1).
The function of polysaccharides from edible fungus varies by different species and origins, different extraction, separation and purification methods, as well as chemical modifications. Fundamentally, the bioactivities of polysaccharides relay on the characteristics of their molecular structure, including monosaccharide composition, molecular weight (Mw), chain length, functional groups, glycosidic linkage, branching degree, spatial structure, configuration and others. For example, Yin et al. (1) reviewed number of edible fungus polysaccharides with immunomodulatory activity and found that mushroom β-glucans with Mw over 104 Da are more active comparing to that with low Mw. Recently, Liu et al. reported that a β-glucan from Grifola frondose polysaccharides from ultrasonic-assisted extraction could relieve the inflammation response in oxazolone (OXZ)-induced ulcerative colitis (UC) mice, by decreasing the pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-1β (IL-1β), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and increasing interleukin-10 (IL-10). Qiao et al. isolated one pyran polysaccharide with Mw 3.2 × 105 Da from Sparassis latifolia and found that it could promote the proliferation of RAW264.7 and secretion of pro-inflammation cytokines through MyD88-dependent and -independent signaling pathways mediated by toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). The polysaccharide from Heimioporus retisporus with an average Mw of 1.95 × 106 Da by Feng et al. has shown a significant hypoglycemic effect in a streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic mouse model.
Meanwhile, many polysaccharides from one species of edible fungus could also demonstrate multiple or opposite bioactivities. It has been known that edible fungus polysaccharides, even mutiple polysaccharides from only one species of edible fungus, are important resources to prevent immune disorder, including immunodeficient and immunodepressed conditions (2). Yan et al. reviewed the bioactivities of polysaccharides from Tremella aurantialba, and found that these polysaccharides might exert immunostimulatory activity via TLR4. Glucuronoxylomannan (TAP-3) with Mw of 6.24 × 105 Da isolated from the fruiting bodies of T. aurantialba could significantly stimulate the secretion of RAW 264.7 macrophages, generating nitric oxide (NO), IL-1β and TNF-α, demonstrating remarkable immune enhancing activity. When the molecular weight of TAP-3 decreased to Mw 5.3 × 103 Da, it could reduce the levels of NO, IL-1β and TNF-α via anti-TLR4 and express immunosuppressive effects (3).
Moreover, there are many reported bioactivities of fungus polysaccharides and they often have connections with each other. For instance, chronic inflammation is widely recognized as one of the key processes that alert the immune system (4) and majority of diseases has closely associated with chronic inflammation or immune disorder (5). Hence the comprehensive analysis of different functions of edible fungus polysaccharides is of importance to discover the action mechanism of their bioactivities, in particular, their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory activities. According to a report of Yan et al. it has been revealed that T. aurantialba polysaccharides has demonstrated effective inhibitory effects on chronic inflammation, thus protected inflammation-related diseases such as aging, cancer, autoimmune, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases. Therefore, inhibition of chronic inflammation could protect many different types of diseases. Feng et al. found that a water-soluble neutral polysaccharide with a Mw of 1.95 × 106 Da isolated from H. retisporus significantly reduced the blood glucose level of STZ-induced diabetic mouse and heart visceral organ index by downregulating the inflammatory cytokines like IL-6.
As an important source, edible fungus polysaccharides have been attested to possess multiple health-promoting effects. Recently, study on the biological property of edible fungus polysaccharides has become hot spot and drew great attention in the field of functional foods and nutraceuticals. With the assistance of the most advanced state of the art technology such as omics and artificial intelligence, comprehensive analysis and research in the resource, composition, structural information, and bioactivity of fungus polysaccharides is warranted to provide more in-depth and detailed information in the research and product development of functional foods with edible fungus polysaccharides.
Author contributions
CM: Conceptualization, Writing—original draft, Funding acquisition. ZL: Writing—original draft. SL: Writing—review and editing. FE-D: Writing—review and editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (32202055), Major Public Welfare Projects in Henan Province (201300110200), Key Research and Development Project of Henan Province (221111110600), Science and Technology Development Program of Henan Province (222102520035), and Innovation and Intelligence introduction Base of Precision Nutrition and Health Food Research of Henan Province (CXJD2021006).
Acknowledgments
We deeply thank all the authors and reviewers who have participated in this Research Topic.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher's note
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References
1. Yin Z, Liang Z, Li C, Wang J, Ma C, Kang W. Immunomodulatory effects of polysaccharides from edible fungus: a review. Food Sci Hum Wellness. (2021) 10:393–400. doi: 10.1016/j.fshw.2021.04.001
2. Kozarski M, Klaus A, van Griensven L, Jakovljevic D, Todorovic N, Wan WAAQI, et al. Mushroom β-glucan and polyphenol formulations as natural immunity boosters and balancers: nature of the application. Food Sci Hum Wellness. (2023) 12:378–96. doi: 10.1016/j.fshw.2022.07.040
3. Yuan Q, Zhang X, Ma M, Long T, Xiao C, Zhang J, et al. Immuno enhancing glucuronoxylomannan from Tremella aurantialba Bandoni et Zang and its low-molecular-weight fractions by radical depolymerization: properties, structures and effects on macrophages. Carbohydr Polym. (2020) 238:116184. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116184
4. Xu W, Larbi A. Immunity and inflammation: from Jekyll to Hyde. Exp Gerontol. (2018) 107:98–101. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2017.11.018
Keywords: edible fungus polysaccharides, immunomodulatory effect, inhibition of inflammation, hypoglycaemic effects, anti-aging
Citation: Ma C, Liu Z, Li S and El-Demerdash FM (2023) Editorial: Comprehensive mechanism of edible fungus polysaccharide in immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, and hypoglycaemic effect. Front. Nutr. 10:1305559. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1305559
Received: 02 October 2023; Accepted: 09 October 2023;
Published: 19 October 2023.
Edited and reviewed by: Lanzhou Li, Jilin Agricultural University, China
Copyright © 2023 Ma, Liu, Li and El-Demerdash. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Changyang Ma, macaya1024@vip.henu.edu.cn; Shiming Li, shiming@rutgers.edu