Studies of the composition of the cryogenic ground chaga

Abstract

The paper studies the properties and chemical composition of birch fungus - Chaga, which contains a unique complex of biologically active substances and is used as a raw material for the production of drugs and biologically active additives. The components listed prove their antioxidant, immunomodulating, antiviral, antidiabetic, and cytotoxic properties. The paper specifies the application of chaga in such areas as medicine, agriculture and food industry. It analyses the way the method of grinding of plant raw materials might influence the quality of the resulting drugs, including the sustaining the biological activity. The results determined that the cryogenic grinding of chaga, which allows to preserve valuable substances of the fungus due to its grinding at low temperature in liquid nitrogen to be the most reasonable. The paper gives the analysis of the obtained dispersed phase by high performance liquid chromatography and atomic absorption spectroscopy. The results of the studies indicate an increase in the content of particular valuable components of the fungus in extracts of raw materials that have gone through the cryogenic grinding, compared with the extracts of raw materials obtained by the traditional grinding method. The data acquired can be of practical importance when chaga is used in medicine.

Chaga mushroom: a super-fungus with countless facets and untapped potential

“…According to a study, by Razumov et al (2020) , they found that chaga hydrolyzed products contain many amino acids with aspartic acid, glycine, and glutamic acid making up, around 40% of the amino acids. The remaining 60% consists of lysine, threonine, methionine, alanine, tyrosine, serine, histidine, proline, tryptophan, arginine, and cysteine ( Razumov et al, 2020 ). Other forms of amino acids such as peptides have also been reported by Hyun et al (2006) .…”

“…Chaga has been observed to have a high concentration of elements, with potassium accounting for 50% of the total ash content, sodium accounting for 9%–13%, and manganese accounting for 1.2% ( Shashkina et al, 2006 ). Other minerals such as copper, zinc, aluminum, sulfur, magnesium, phosphorus, and calcium have all been identified in chaga ( Razumov et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Their findings revealed that chaga contains amounts of iodine, vanadium, zinc, copper, selenium, manganese, and sulphur (0.02%) rubidium (approximately 0.04%) sodium (approximately 0.05%) phosphorus (approximately 0.23%) chlorine (approximately 0.33%) calcium (approximately 0.37%) nitrogen (approximately 0.4%) magnesium (approximately 0.64%) hydrogen (around 3.6%) potassium (around 9 10%) and carbon constituting approximately 39%. ( Razumov et al, 2020 ). These findings suggest that Chaga mushrooms and their derived products possess essential nutrients that are beneficial for crop cultivation ( Peng and Shahidi, 2022 ).…”

“…Inonotus obliquus (Chaga mushroom) is a sterile tree-destroying fungus that parasitizes the trunks of living birches. It belongs to the family Hymenochaetaceae and thrives in humid parts of Europe, Asia, and North America ( Razumov et al, 2020 ; Abu-Reidah et al, 2021 ). The genus Inonotus includes about 100 species in a broad sense all of which have been identified as plant pathogens ( Zhou and Wang, 2015 ).…”

Methods for evaluating chaga extraction effectiveness based on its porosity change

“…In turn, density refers to a scalar (indirect) parameter since it is not determined by direct measurement, but by the weight to volume ratio. The phytogenic origin of chaga determines its complex anatomy and porous structure [7,8]. Therefore, chaga's body volume and true volume can be distinguished, accordingly, the average density and apparent density (cell wall density, true density) can be found [9,10].…”