African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 6 (15), pp. 1740-1743, 6 August 2007   

ISSN 1684–5315 © 2007 Academic Journals        

Full Length Research Paper

Cytotoxic activities of Coriolus versicolor (Yunzhi) extracts on human liver cancer and breast cancer cell line

Xuanwei Zhou^1*, Hua Jiang², Juan Lin² and Kexuan Tang¹

¹Plant Biotechnology Research Center, School of Agriculture and Biology, Fudan-SJTU-Nottingham, Plant Biotechnology R and D Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China.

²State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan-SJTU-Nottingham, Plant Biotechnology R and D Center, Morgan-Tan International Center for Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, P. R. China.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: xuanweizhou@sjtu.edu.cn. Tel: +86-21-62932002. Fax: +86-21- 65643552,

Abbreviations: YZ, Yun Zhi; CVP, Coriolus versicolor polysaccharides; PSK, polysaccharopeptide Krestin; PSP, polysaccharopeptide; and MTT, 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazolyl)-2, 5-diphenyl- tetrazolium bromide.

Accepted 1 March, 2007

The CVP (Coriolus versicolor polysaccharide) is well known as anti-tumor drug in clinical applications. Although recent studies have demonstrated that CVP can inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells in vitro and in vivo, the different purity level of CVP has a different affect on various cancer cells. In this study, the crude CVP was extracted from C. versicolor dry fruit bodies by hot-water extraction and ethanol precipitation. The content of CVP was 7.74% in the fruit bodies, while 54.69% in the crude extracts by phenol-vitriolic colorimetry. After that, the in vitro cytotoxic activities of the CVP were examined on the four human liver cancer (7703, HepG2, 7721, PLC) and four human breast cancer (Bcap37, ZR75-30, MCF-7, T-47D) cell lines using a MTT cytotoxicity assay. The results showed that the CVP inhibited the proliferation of 7703, Bcap37, T-47D in low concentration; the IC₅₀ values on 7703, Bcap37 and T-47D were 18.37, 14.42 and 9.29 mg/l, respectively. The CVP also inhibited the proliferation of MCF-7 and ZR75-30, but at high concentration, the IC₅₀ values on MCF-7 and ZR75-30 were 39.26 and 34.59 mg/l, respectively. The CVP does not inhibit the proliferation of HepG2, 7721, PLC and human normal liver cell line (WRL). The CVP was found to selectively inhibit the proliferation of human liver cancer and human breast cancer.

Key words: Coriolus versicolor, fruit body, polysaccharide, anti-tumor.