Toxicological evaluation and hepatoprotective effect of Amanita ponderosa

Edible mushrooms, moreover to their gastronomic characteristics, are a source of valuable nutrients and bioactive compounds with potential beneficial effects on human health. Currently mushrooms become attractive as functional foods due to medicinal properties and useful in preventing diseases shown antitumour and immunomodulating properties, cardioprotective, hepatoprotective, antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal effects. In the near future, could play an important role as a nutraceutical and/or therapeutic agents [1, 2]. The southern of Portugal, namely in Alentejo region, due to its Mediterranean microclimate and flora diversity, is one of the European regions with a high predominance of wild edible mushrooms Amanita ponderosa. Although there are many studies about the beneficial properties of constituents and some edible wild mushrooms, there are no studies on the biological activity of A. ponderosa [3]. Thus, the main objective of this study was to evaluate the hepatoprotective effect of fruiting bodies and mycelia of liquid cultures of some strains of A. ponderosa, with enzymatic activity determinations of ALT, AST, ALP and G-GT, after intoxication with ethanol in Wistar rats, as an experimental model. It was also previously evaluated the toxicity of these cultures using biological models: Swiss mice and Artemia salina. The dried fruiting bodies of mushroom and mycelia of cultures obtained from A. ponderosa, showed no citotoxicity against A. salina and also not observed acute toxicity in Swiss mice. The administration of mycelia of A. ponderosa liquid cultures seems to indicate hepatoprotective activity equivalent to that observed for the standard drug, silymarin. Also is observable in all enzymes studied a decrease in their levels in the bloodstream, showing capacity to reduce the liver damage induced by ethanol-administration