Evaluation of the Anti-angiogenic Effect of B-glucan Extracted from P. eryngii

      This study was conducted to investigate the effect of -glucan extracted from the medicinal mushroom pleurotus eryngii as an anti-angiogenic and anti-tumor factor. Samples of dried mushroom Pleurotus eryngii were collected from Ministry of Agriculture/Department of Organic Farming in Baghdad. The -glucan was extracted from the mushroom samples using hot water extraction method. The
extracted glucan was confirmed by both High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) which were used to analyze the chemical structure. Carbohydrates and proteins contents were determined for the glucan and the results indicated that the carbohydrate and protein contents were 250 mg/ml and 0.04 mg/ml respectively. The anti-angiogenic effect of the extracted -glucan was evaluated using CAM assay that was carried out using fertilized eggs with age of 8 days, different doses (250, 500, 1000 and 2000 g/egg) of -glucan were used and in comparison with the negative control. Results showed that high doses (500, 1000  and 2000 g/egg) showed a decreased number of blood vessels in the fertilized eggs as compared with the negative control which indicated the inhibition of fertilized egg neovascularization, while the dose (250 g/egg) showed no significant effect on the neovascularization. The anti-tumor effect of -glucan was evaluated in mice which were subcutaneously inoculated with AN3 adenocarcinomas cells line at from thigh toward the shoulder region, different doses (200, 400 and 800 mg/kg/day) of glucan were injected intraperitoneally in tumor bearing mice for ten consecutive days. Histopathological sectioning revealed both necrosis and an increased number of inflammatory cells in the treated tumors as compared with the negative control.