Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Extracts of Cordyceps sinensis: Chromatography-based Metabolite Profiling and Protective Efficacy Against Hypobaric Hypoxia

Supercritical Extraction and Compound Profiling of Diverse Edible Mushroom Species

Mushrooms are a raw material rich in many nutritional compounds, and that is why a number of them are widely known as functional food. They contain fatty acids, carbohydrates, lycopene, sterols, lovastatin, trace elements, and other valuable compounds that show a wide range of properties, such as hepatoprotective, anticancer, antiviral, etc. For more efficient utilisation of mushrooms' biologically active substances, widespread supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (Sc-CO2) was used as an efficient way to isolate the high-value phytoconstituents from this type of raw material. Using Sc-CO2, the extracts of five types of edible mushrooms-Lycoperdon saccatum, Pleurotus ostreatus, Craterellus cornucopioides, Russula Cyanoxantha and Cantharellus cibarius-were obtained. During the Sc-CO2 process, the extraction time was reduced to 4 h compared to the prolonged process time applied in the typical traditional techniques (6-24 h). The extraction pressure (30 MPa) and temperature (40 °C) were constant. Fatty acids and the compounds of steroid structures were determined in the obtained extracts using GC-MS and GC-FID methods of analysis. The dominant compounds identified in the lipid extracts were fatty acids (linoleic, oleic, palmitic and stearic) and sterols (ergosterol, 7,22-ergostadienone and 7,22-ergostadienol). For complete insight into the process and to obtain the value of the extracts, chemometric analysis is provided. Principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), as well as k-means clustering, showed that Craterellus cornucopioides was distinguished based on the extraction yield results.

Cordyceps: Alleviating ischemic cardiovascular and cerebrovascular injury - A comprehensive review

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Cordyceps has a long medicinal history as a nourishing herb in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Ischemic cardio-cerebrovascular diseases (CCVDs), including cerebral ischemic/reperfusion injury (CI/RI) and myocardial ischemic/reperfusion injury (MI/RI), are major contributors to mortality and disability in humans. Numerous studies have indicated that Cordyceps or its artificial substitutes have significant bioactivity on ischemic CCVDs, however, there is a lack of relevant reviews.

AIM OF THE STUDY

This review was conducted to investigate the chemical elements, pharmacological effects, clinical application and drug safety of Cordycepson ischemic CCVDs.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A comprehensive search was conducted on the Web of Science, PubMed, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang databases using the keywords "Cordyceps", "Cerebral ischemic/reperfusion injury", and "Myocardial ischemic/reperfusion injury" or their synonyms. The retrieved literature was then categorized and summarized.

RESULTS

The study findings indicated that Cordyceps and its bioactive components, including adenosine, cordycepin, mannitol, polysaccharide, and protein, have the potential to protect against CI/RI and MI/RI by improving blood perfusion, mitigating damage from reactive oxygen species, suppressing inflammation, preventing cellular apoptosis, and promoting tissue regeneration. Individually, Cordyceps could reduce neuronal excitatory toxicity and blood-brain barrier damage caused by cerebral ischemia. It can also significantly improve cardiac energy metabolism disorders and inhibit calcium overload caused by myocardial ischemia. Additionally, Cordyceps exerts a significant preventive or curative influence on the factors responsible for heart/brain ischemia, including hypertension, thrombosis, atherosclerosis, and arrhythmia.

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrates Cordyceps' prospective efficacy and safety in the prevention or treatment of CI/RI and MI/RI, providing novel insights for managing ischemic CCVDs.

The Effect of Green Extraction Technologies on the Chemical Composition of Medicinal Chaga Mushroom Extracts

The mushroom industry should implement green extraction technologies; however, there is not enough information on the differences between these techniques expressed as the chemical composition of the resulting extract. In this study, selected types of green extraction techniques (GETs) were used on Chaga (Inonotus obliquus) (Fr.) Pilát from Serbia (IS) and Mongolia (IM) to examine the differences that would enable the composition-based technology choices in the mushroom supplement industry. Subcritical water extraction (SWE), microwave-assisted (MW) extraction, and ultrasonic-assisted extraction (VAE) were used to prepare the extracts. SWE was performed at two different temperatures (120 and 200 °C), while 96% ethanol, 50% ethanol, and water were used for MW and VAE. The yield, the content of total phenols, total proteins, and carbohydrates, qualitative and quantitative analysis of phenolic compounds, carbohydrates, including α- and β- and total glucans, and fatty acids, were determined in the obtained extracts. SWE resulted in a significantly higher yield, total polysaccharide, and glucan content than any other technique. Glucose was the most dominant monosaccharide in the SWE samples, especially those extracted at 200 °C. The MW 50% EtOH extracts showed the highest yield of total phenols. Among the tested phenolic compounds, chlorogenic acid was the most dominant. SWE can be recommended as the most efficient method for extracting commercially important compounds, especially glucans and phenols.

An authentic assessment method for cordyceps sinensis

Cordyceps Sinensis, renowned for its diverse pharmacological properties and the rarity of its natural species, faces significant challenges due to rampant adulteration by counterfeit products. Consequently, there is a crucial need to reliably identify Cordyceps species to ensure their quality and efficacy. While current analytical techniques predominantly rely on LC-MS, there remains a notable deficiency and substantial demand for the development of a unified, reproducible, and fast method suitable for commercial applications. In this study, we employed a cost-effective and straightforward approach utilizing headspace GC-MS to authenticate Cordyceps sinensis. This method enables the comprehensive analysis of the chemical profile, facilitating the identification of quality and authenticity in Cordyceps samples. Through a comparative analysis of the chemical profiles of seven authentic Cordyceps samples with seven other Cordyceps samples, we propose a Quality Assessment System for Authentic Cordyceps, encompassing the following criteria: 1) the presence of 29 compounds commonly found in authentic Cordyceps within the chemical profile, and 2) the area ratio of 3-methylbutanal to 2-methylbutanal falling within the range of 2.09-3.01. This method exhibits considerable promise as a standardized, reproducible, and expeditious technique for the quality assessment and authentication of Cordyceps.

Determination of Cordycepin Using a Stability-Indicating Greener HPTLC Method

A wide range of analytical techniques have been reported to determine cordycepin (CDN) in various sample matrices. Nevertheless, greener analytical approaches for CDN estimation are scarce in the literature. As a result, this study was designed to develop and validate a stability-indicating greener “high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC)” technique for CDN determination in a laboratory-developed formulation. The greener eluent system for CDN detection was ethanol–water (75:25 v/v). At a wavelength of 262 nm, CDN was measured. The greenness scale of the proposed analytical technology was derived using the “Analytical GREENness (AGREE)” approach. The proposed stability-indicating HPTLC assay was linear for CDN analysis in the 50–1000 ng/band range with a determination coefficient of 0.9978. The proposed analytical technique for CDN analysis was simple, rapid, accurate, precise, robust, selective, stability-indicating, and greener. The AGREE score for the proposed stability-indicating HPTLC technique was calculated to be 0.79 using the AGREE calculator. The current protocol was able to detect CDN degradation products under various stress conditions, indicating its stability-indication characteristics and selectivity. The AGREE quantitative score indicated that the stability-indicating current protocol had outstanding greener characteristics. The amount of CDN in the laboratory-developed formulation was determined to be 98.84%, indicating the suitability of the current protocol in the assay of CDN in the formulations. These results suggested that CDN in a laboratory-developed formulation may be regularly determined using the stability-indicating greener HPTLC strategy.