Abstract

There is limited information regarding acute toxicity and lethal concentration of edible and medicinal mushrooms. The objective of this paper is to estimate the cytotoxicity of the aqueous extract of Agaricus sylvaticus mushroom on human erythrocytes by determining the lethal average concentration (LC₅₀). Six concentrations of the mushroom (17, 8.5, 4.25, 2.125, 1.0625 and 0.5312 mg/mL) were submitted for evaluation of hemolytic activityin vitro, using a suspension of blood. Through the Prism GraphPad Software, using the Tukey test for statistical analysis (p <0.05), a curve was constructed with values â€‹â€‹of A. sylvaticus mushroom concentrations versus the values â€‹â€‹determined by absorbance spectrophotometry at 540 nm. Results of hemolytic activity for the aqueous extract were fitted using nonlinear regression and the equation: Yi = axi / (b + Xi). We used values â€‹â€‹of y as hemolytic activity and x as log of A. sylvaticus mushroom concentration. The coefficient for determining the curve (R²) was 0.95 of the original data. The percentage of haemolysis increased in a concentration-dependent manner of A. sylvaticus extract used. The LC₅₀ value obtained was 9.213 mg/mL. Results derived from this experiment suggest that this mushroom extract has very low toxicity proving to be safe for human use.

Key words: Lethal concentration, Agaricus sylvaticus, hemolytic activity, sun mushroom.