In a study published in Frontiers, researchers have found a way to grow the zombie mushrooms that feed on other insects in a lab without losing their potency. The scientists believed mushrooms could help develop new antiviral and anticancer drugs.
What is a Zombie Mushroom?
The Cordyceps fungus, sometimes zombie mushrooms, is very effective at infecting and killing insects. It disperses across an insect's body, creating a network of filaments that manage the creature's muscles. Once the insect's body has completely run out of nutrition, the fungus matures into fully fledged fruiting bodies that emerge from the flesh of the bug, releasing spores that infect further humans.
According to EurekAlert, cordyceps mushrooms have significant medical value despite their gruesome process. It contains cordycepin, a bioactive compound that may one day be used to develop potent new antiviral medications and cancer therapies.
Compared to other types, Cordyceps mushrooms grow differently.
The growth of Cordyceps mushrooms differs from that of other varieties. Since they are uncommon in the wild, it has been difficult to cultivate healthy mushrooms in the lab until now.
Growing Zombie Mushroom in the Laboratory
According to Interesting Engineering, the cordycepin levels produced by the mushrooms are quite low because of the grain's low protein content, despite the mushrooms being grown in laboratories on grains such as brown rice.
Lee and her coworkers experimented with using edible insects as a substitute growth medium for cordyceps to boost the yield of cordycepin. The research team looked at the optimum meal for the mushrooms to thrive because various insects offer varying nutritional elements.
For two months, the team produced zombie mushrooms on crickets, silkworm pupae, mealworms, grasshoppers, white-spotted flower chafer larvae, and Japanese rhinoceros beetles. After harvesting the mushrooms, they looked into the findings.
The mushrooms grew very differently due to varied insect-feeding sources. The cordyceps grew the fastest on mealworms and silkworm pupae, whereas on chafer larvae and grasshoppers, it did the least well. However, maximum growth did not always occur at high cordycepin concentrations. Despite not growing as large, the cordyceps grown on Japanese rhinoceros beetles produced the highest amounts of cordycepin-34 times more than the pupae of silkworms that performed the worst.
In comparison to cordyceps grown on brown rice, Dr. Lee reported edible insect-grown cordyceps to contain about 100 times more cordycepin.
Fat Cordyceps
Further studies revealed that the fat content of the insect rather than the protein content is the key to high levels of cordycepin synthesis. Large amounts of oleic acid may be necessary, in particular, for the synthesis of cordycepin. The addition of oleic acid improved the quantity of cordycepin that the Cordyceps fed on a subpar insect feed produced by 50%.
According to Dr. Lee, the research strongly demonstrates that an approach for increasing cordycepin production in the growth of
Using insects with a high oleic acid concentration would be cordyceps. Researchers anticipate that the study will create a more economically viable method of generating cordycepin, even though the use of edible insects is not yet sufficient for scale-up to an industrial level.
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