Cordyceps Gracilis Fermentation Process And Pharmacodynamics

Being a rare and valued traditional Chinese medicine, Cordyceps gracilis belongs to Cordyceps, Clavicipticeae, Hypocreales, Ascmycotina. Cordyceps gracilis is used for menoxenia and hypoimmunity. However, C. gracilis as a natural resource is now confronted with resource exhaustion due to environment deterioration, so artificial cultivation is an effective method to its recovery. This paper studied on the fermentation condition for C. gracilis, which is isolated from the wild fruiting body of the fungus in Xinjiang. The results of flask orthogonal experiment showed that the optimal fermentation medium, in the term of hyphae biomass, was composed of 20g/l of glucose, 30g/l of corn flour, 10g/l of peptone, 20g/l of soybean flour, 0.02g/l of MgSO₄·7H₂O and 0.4g/l of KH₂PO₄, the optimized fermentation condition by 10L automatic agitation fermentor trials included inoculums volume of 15%, fermentation temperature of 26℃,pH 6.7, rotation rate of 100 rpm, inoculums age of 96h and fermentation period of 144h. The maximum dry biomass of 3.5% was obtained under above conditions which increased by 50% compared with fermentation before optimization. The effective components of C. gracilis mycelia from fermenting mash under above conditions were furthermore analyzed. The results showed that the contents of main effective ingredients such as cordyceps polysaccharide, adenosine, cordyceps acid, amino acids were 11.93%, 0.062%, 5.52%, and 25.93% respectively, the contents of trace elements Zn and Se were 60 ppm and 0.3 ppm, and various trace elements can also be detected. Compared natural C. gracilis from Xinjiang with natural C. sinensis from Qinhai, the main components are similar. Preliminary studies on the acute and chronic toxicity and pharmacodynamics of C. gracilis mycelia from fermentation have been carried out in this paper. The oral LD50 has not been detected in acute toxicity test, any adverse reaction has not been observed in MTD test, no obvious effect on the growth and hematopoietic system of mouse has been investigated in chronic toxicity test, no histological change has been detected in histological check. The results of pharmacodynamics showed that C. gracilis has sedative effect and could enhance the body's adaptive ability, non-specific and humoral immunity.