Preliminary Bioactivity Screening of Crude Extracts of Six Wild Macrofungi From Pine Forests in Benguet and Mt. Province, Philippines
A. Culliao, R. Lumang-ay, G. Kingat, T. Colallad, M. Canaria (pp. 74-88)
Abstract
This study investigated the pharmacological significance of wild macrofungi collected from pine forests in Benguet and Mt. Province, Philippines, to help address a number of health-related conditions, such as oxidative stress, thrombosis, and bacterial infections. Six wild macrofungi were subjected to chloroform and ethanol extraction, and their crude extracts were screened for their total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant, lethality, thrombolytic, and antibacterial activities. The ethanol extract of Daedaleopsis confragosa has the highest TPC at 49.28 ± 0.30 μg gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/mg extract and percent free radical inhibition activity at 74.59 ± 0.11%, which was comparable to the pure compound quercetin at 74.33 ± 0.32%. On the other hand, the ethanol extracts of Scleroderma citrinum and Postia fragilis have the most potent median effective concentration (EC50) at 431.01 ± 17.82 and 469.63 ± 15.25 μg/mL. Only the ethanol extract of Daedaleopsis confragosa exhibited low toxicity (median lethal concentration (LC50) = 565.90 μg/mL) while the rest of the test extracts are not toxic. Both chloroform and ethanol extracts of Termitomyces eurrhizus yielded the highest percent clot reduction values at 35.19 ± 0.13% and 32.41 ± 0.17%, respectively. This is the first study to report the thrombolytic activity of macrofungi extracts from the Philippines. The ethanol extract of Lenzites betulina gave the highest zone of inhibition (ZOI) against Staphylococcus aureus American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) 25923 (13.33 ± 0.58 mm) while the chloroform extract of Daedaleopsis confragosa gave the highest ZOI against Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 (12.33 ± 1.15 mm). These data indicated that the wild macrofungi tested could constitute a potential source of natural bioactive compounds in the production of pharmaceutical dosage forms or nutraceuticals.