title: Indigenous to Tanzania.
abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate free radical scavenging capacity of crude extracts from forest basidiomycetous fungi, domestic zygomycetous fungi and marine ascomycetous fungi. Lethal concentration values that kill 50% of the brine shrimps (LC50) were determined from 19 fungal extracts using brine shrimp test (BST). The LC50 values of fungal extract ranged between 0.28-40 μg/ml. The basidiomycetous (Lactarius volemoides) was the most toxic fungi with LC50 of 0.28 μg/ml while ascomycete Pichia guilliermondii showed the least toxicity with LC50 of 40 μg/ml. The concentrations of eleven fungal extracts were further evaluated on their ability to scavenge free radical using 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (α,α-diphenyl-β-picrylhydrazyl) (DPPH) as a dye reagent for spectrophotometric assay at 517 nm. The extract concentrations that decreased the initial DPPH radical by 50% (EC50) were determined. The EC50 values ranged from 19-60.4 μg/ml ascorbic acid equivalents. Extracts from an edible but undomesticated basidiomycetous fungus isolated from Miombo forest and identified as Termitomyces microcarpus showed the highest scavenging effect with EC50 at 19 μg/ml while that from ascomycete Candida tropicalis showed the least EC50 at 60.4 μg/ml. These results draw attention to wild undomesticated Miombo fungi as potential source of nutritional supplements worth further investigation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. rosemina@amu.udsm.ac.tz
authors.forename: Rose J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Masalu
authors.forename: Ken M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Hosea
authors.forename: Sylives
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Malendeja
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000975:Antioxidants / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000633:toxicity; D001156:Artemia; D001203:Ascomycota / Q000737:chemistry*; D001487:Basidiomycota / Q000737:chemistry*; D016166:Free Radical Scavengers / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000633:toxicity; D009090:Mucorales / Q000737:chemistry*; D013636:Tanzania; D018675:Toxicity Tests / Q000379:methods; D053833:Wetlands
chemical_list: D000975:Antioxidants; D016166:Free Radical Scavengers