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This article reviews mushrooms with anti-breast cancer activity. The mushrooms covered which are better known include the following: button mushroom Agaricus bisporus, Brazilian mushroom Agaricus blazei, Amauroderma rugosum, stout camphor fungus Antrodia camphorata, Jew's ear (black) fungus or black wood ear fungus Auricularia auricula-judae, reishi mushroom or Lingzhi Ganoderma lucidum, Ganoderma sinense, maitake mushroom or sheep's head mushroom Grifola frondosa, lion's mane mushroom or monkey head mushroom Hericium erinaceum, brown beech mushroom Hypsizigus marmoreus, sulfur polypore mushroom Laetiporus sulphureus, Lentinula edodes (shiitake mushroom), Phellinus linteus (Japanese "meshimakobu," Chinese "song gen," Korean "sanghwang," American "black hoof mushroom"), abalone mushroom Pleurotus abalonus, king oyster mushroom Pleurotus eryngii, oyster mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus, tuckahoe or Fu Ling Poria cocos, and split gill mushroom Schizophyllum commune. Antineoplastic effectiveness in human clinical trials and mechanism of anticancer action have been reported for Antrodia camphorata, Cordyceps sinensis, Coriolus versicolor, Ganoderma lucidum, Grifola frondosa, and Lentinula edodes. Agaricus placomycesThe 68-kDa laccase from Agaricus placomyces belongs to a family of copper-containing oxidases involved in lignin degradation and possessing anticancer activity (Mizerska-Dudka et al. 2015). It potently expressed antiproliferative activity toward MCF-7 human breast cancer cells with an IC50 of 1.8 μM (Sun et al. 2012). Agaricus sylvaticusIn a randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled clinical trial, 46 patients with stage II and III breast cancer who received chemotherapy demonstrated an improved appetite and fewer gastrointestinal complaints, nausea, and vomiting following dietary supplementation with A. sylvaticus (2.1 g/day) (Valadares et al. 2013). Amauroderma rude Amauroderma rude had higher tumoricidal activity than Ganoderma lucidum. A. rude lowered cell survival and triggered apoptosis in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. Tumor growth in athymic nude mice bearing MDA-MB-231-xenografts was retarded and tumor cell death was promoted by treatment with A. rude. Expression of the c-Myc oncogene was downregulated . A. rude exhibited a higher content of ergosterol (ergosta-5,7,22-trien-3β-ol) in comparison with 12 other mushrooms examined. Under the influence of ergosterol, the viability of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells was reduced, whereas expression of the tumor suppressor Foxo3 and downstream signaling molecules including BimL, BimS, Fas, and FasL was enhanced resulting in apoptosis of the breast cancer cells (Li et al. 2015).Amauroderma rugosum (also known as black Lingzhi, a member of five-color Lingzhi) Organic molecules from A. rugosum inhibited oxidant activity, tumor necrosis factor-α and nitric oxide formation, and MCF7 cell proliferation (Zhang et al. 2017a). A single treatment with pulverized A. rugosum (2000 mg/kg) by mouth did not impair growth, blood parameters, histological structures of t...

Carboxypeptidase B has been isolated from numerous mammalian and invertebrate species. In contrast, very little is known about carboxypeptidases of avian origin. To provide information for a comparative study, we have undertaken an investigation of the kinetic and physical properties of ostrich carboxypeptidase B. Carboxypeptidase B from the pancreas of the ostrich was purified by water extraction of acetone powder and aminobenzylsuccinic acid affinity and hydroxylapatite chromatography. The effects of pH and temperature on CPB activity were examined. K(i)-values for numerous inhibitors (PCI, ABSA, hipp-D-lys, epsilon-aminocaproic acid, D-arg and 3-phenylproprionic acid) and kinetic parameters (K(m), k(cat) and k(cat)/K(m)) for several substrates (hipp-arg, hipp-lys, FAAA, FAAL and hipp-AA) were determined. N-terminal sequencing and amino acid analysis were also performed. Purified ostrich carboxypeptidase B was assessed to be homogeneous by SDS-PAGE with a M(r) value of approx. 35,000. For ostrich carboxypeptidase B the K(m) values for the different substrates were of the same order as those reported for other species, whereas the k(cat) values were 8- to 21-fold lower than the reported values. FAAA and hipp-AA were the preferred substrates. PCI was the most effective inhibitor, with a K(i) in the nM region, and no inhibition was shown with 3-phenylpropionic acid. The N-terminal sequence showed a high degree of homology when aligned with CPB from other species. Amino acid analysis showed significantly lower levels of Asx and Cyh and higher levels of Trp and Leu when compared with other species. Ostrich carboxypeptidase B would appear to show many physical, chemical and kinetic properties similar to those of other known carboxypeptidases.

Abstract␤-Microseminoprotein, alternatively called prostatic secretory protein of 94 amino acids, is a hydrophilic, unglycosylated, small protein rich in conserved half-cystine residues. Originally found in human seminal plasma and prostatic fluids, its presence was later shown in numerous secretions and its homologs were described in many vertebrate species. These studies showed that this protein had rapidly evolved, but they failed to unambiguously identify its biological role. Here, we show that a protein isolated from ostrich pituitary gland is closely related to a similar one isolated from chicken serum and that the two are structurally related to the mammalian ␤-microseminoprotein. The complete 90-amino acid sequence of the ostrich molecule was established through a combination of automated Edman degradation and matrixassisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometric procedures, including postsource decay (PSD) and ladder sequencing analyses. This study documents for the first time that ␤-microseminoprotein is present in aves. It is also the first report of a C-terminal amidated form for a member of this protein family and the first in which the disulfide linkages are established. Database searches using the herein-described amino acid sequence allowed identification of related proteins in numerous species such as cow, African clawed frog, zebrafish, and Japanese flounder. These small proteins show a strikingly high rate of amino acid substitutions, especially across phyla boundaries. Noticeably, no ␤-microseminoprotein-related gene could be found in the recently completed fruit fly genome, indicating that if such a gene exists in arthropods, it must have extensively diverged from the vertebrate ones.