Insights into the in-vitro hypocholesterolemic, antioxidant, antirotavirus, and anticolon cancer activities of the methanolic extracts of a Japanese lichen, Candelariella vitellina, and a Japanese mushroom, Ganoderma applanatum

Abstract

Background and objective Medicinal mushrooms, as well as lichens are potential sources of bioactive compounds against many lethal diseases. Therefore, in-vitro evaluations of the biological activities of the 80% methanolic extracts of two Japanese originated samples, namely, the mushroom Ganoderma applanatum, and the lichen Candelariella vitellina have been performed.Materials and methods Extraction of C. vitellina and G. applanatum was conducted using 80% methanol. The resulted extracts were examined for their in-vitro hypocholesterolemic and antirotavirus activities, as well as antihuman colon cancer action.Results and conclusion It was revealed that both extracts have potent hypocholesterolemic effects. G. applanatum in concentration of 24 mg/ml could successfully reduce the cholesterol concentration to 100±0% after 96 h of incubation at room temperature, whereas reaching this degree of reduction in cholesterol concentration required using 32 mg/ml of C. vitellina extract. On the contrary, the extract of C. vitellina at concentration of 1.0 mg/ml exhibited a stronger DPPH scavenging activity (99.5±0.166%), in comparison with 66.24±0.43% in case of using the same concentration of the G. applanatum extract. C. vitellina extract showed antirotavirus in a therapeutic index of 11, whereas G. applanatum extract recorded 3.4 only. The antihuman colon cancer study elucidated that both extracts have a moderate activity toward HCT116 human colon carcinoma. C. vitellina extract achieved a cytotoxicity of 57.90±4.4%, whereas the extract of G. applanatum displayed only 43.10±0.9%. Studies on G. applanatum and C. vitellina introduce them as promising sources of biologically potent compounds that can be candidates for use in treatment of many diseases after further studies.