Agaricus brasiliensis-enriched functional product promotes in mice increase in HDL levels and immunomodulate to Th1 CD4+T subsets. A. brasiliensis functional product and biological benefits.

The fruiting bodies and liquid-culture mycelia of A. brasiliensis (= A. blazei, A. subrufescens or Sun mushroom) has been reported to possess immunomodulatory and antitumoral activities and it is used for cure and prevention of diseases, but the effect of solid state culture mycelium have nevertheless been analyzed. This study investigated the effect of consumption of wheat grains cultured with the Agaricus brasiliensis mycelium on the metabolism and immunomodulatory alterations in mice. In our data was reported a protein enrichment of 6% on the cultured wheat grains, which present also high levels of ergosterol, and presence of cardiac glycosides. The diet intake by the mice resulted in increase in HDL cholesterol concentration and reduction in triacylglyceromia in plasma. Moreover, there were increases in the ratio of CD4+T to CD8+T cell and in levels of IFN-g and IL-6 in plasma. However, in peritoneal macrophage culture, the levels of IFN-g and IL-6 were unchanged, but the IL-12 concentration was increased; while TNF-a and MCP-1levels were reduced in mice from the A. brasiliensis biocultured material group compared to the control. In summary, the solid state culture demonstrated to be a very good technique to develop A. brasiliensis mycelium on wheat grains to obtain a protein enriched biocultured material. The long intake of this biocultured material by mice promoted an increase in the “good cholesterol” plasma concentration and probably expansion of the Th1 CD4+T cells.