Most of traditional Chinese medicine substances come from herbal plants. The medicinal quality of herbal plants varies with the locations of cultivation, the parts of the herb collected, the season of the herb collected, and the herb processing method. Polysaccharides are major components of the herb plants and their biosynthesis is partly controlled by the genes but mostly influenced by the availability of the nutrition and determined by the various environmental factors. In recent decades, polysaccharides isolated from different kinds of Chinese herbs have received much attention due to their important biological activities, such as anti-tumor, anti-oxidant, anti-diabetic, radiation protecting, antiviral, hypolipidemic, and immunomodulatory activities. Interestingly, different batches of the same herb can obtain different polysaccharide fractions with

Poria cocos is an edible medicinal fungus known as “Fuling” in Chinese and has been used as a Chinese traditional medicine for more than two thousand years. Pharmacological studies reveal that polysaccharide is the most abundant substance in Poria cocos and has a wide range of biological activities including antitumour, immunomodulation, anti‐inflammation, antioxidation, anti‐ageing, antihepatitis, antidiabetics and anti‐haemorrhagic fever effects. As a result, “Poria cocos polysaccharide oral solution” was developed and sold as an over‐the‐counter health supplement since 1970s. In 2015, “Polysaccharidum of Poria cocos oral solution” was approved as a drug by Chinese Food and Drug Administration for treating multiple types of cancers, hepatitis and other diseases alone or during chemo‐ or radiation therapy for patients with cancer. In this article, biochemical, preclinical and clinical studies of Poria cocos polysaccharide from 72 independent studies during the past 46 years (1970‐2016) based on PubMed, VIP (Chongqing VIP Chinese Scientific Journals Database), CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) and Wanfang database searches are summarized. The structure, pharmacological effects, clinical efficacy, immunobalancing molecular mechanism and toxicity of Poria cocos polysaccharide are deliberated to provide a general picture of Poria cocos polysaccharide as a clinically used antitumour drug.

Ganoderma lucidum is an edible medicinal mushroom known as “Lingzhi” in China and “Reishi or Manetake” in Japan. It is a highly prized vitality‐enhancing herb for more than 2000 years. G. lucidum polysaccharide (GLPS) has been identified as one of the major bioactive components and developed into a drug named “Ji 731 Injection” in China since 1973. The large‐scale production of the drug began in 1985 and approved by the Chinese FDA as “Polysaccharidum of G. lucidum Karst Injection” (Ling Bao Duo Tang Zhu She Ye) in 2000, which is applied intramuscularly. After more than forty years of clinical use, its efficacy, safety and long‐term tolerability have been recognized by neurologists. It is one of a few non‐hormonal drugs used for treating refractory myopathy. It is also used for combination therapy, which reduces the amount of glucocorticoid required for myopathy patient who is in remission. In addition, it reduces adverse reactions and improves the quality of life for cancer patients during chemotherapy. We found 81 qualified chemical, biochemical, preclinical and clinical studies of GLPS both in English and in Chinese spanning from 1973 to 2017 by searching CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), Wanfang database and PubMed. The molecular mechanisms underlying GLPS's antioxidant, anti‐tumour, immune‐modulatory, hypoglycaemic, hypolipidaemic and other activities are discussed. Both preclinical and clinical studies are either deliberated or indexed in the current article. We aimed at providing a molecular picture as well as a clinical basis to comprehend GLPS as one of few polysaccharide‐based modern medicines with complicated chemical and pharmacological properties that prevent it from entering the world's market.

Clinical data presented in the past 12 years shows that lentinan is effective not only in improving quality of life, but also in promoting the efficacy of chemotherapy during lung cancer treatment.