Extraction and Purification of Pleuran from the Edible Mushroom Pleurotus Ostreatus Var. Ostreatus and Evaluate its Efficacy for Anti-inflammatory, Antioxidant and Immunostimulatory Activities in the Laboratory Rats

Abstract

 This study was conducted at the laboratories of the College of Agriculture, Animal House, and Veterinary Medicine, Tikrit University, from September 22, 2022, to January 22, 2023, with the aim of extracting and purifying the polysaccharide compound, Pleuran from the edible mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus var. ostreatus and evaluating its efficacy as an immunomodulatory and antioxidant agent. The fruit bodies of P. ostreatus var. ostreatus were selected for extraction, purification, and quantitative determination of Pleuran using high-performance liquid chromatography, which yielded a concentration of 7.28 μg/mL. In the evaluation of the antioxidant efficacy of Pleuran in In vitro experiments, the results demonstrated that Pleuran at 5% exhibited higher antioxidant activity, scavenging free radicals of DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) and reducing power, reached 70.03%, 57.92% and 3.27 compared to 85.11%, 59.02% and 3.01 in the standard agent (vitamin C), respectively. The results of the Pleuran effect In vivo (white rats) showed that all Pleuran concentrations did not have a negative impact on the hematological parameters in healthy animals.

However, these treatments led to improvements in the white blood cell counts, restoring them to normal levels in animals induced with inflammation by formalin. The highest improvements were observed at 15 mg/kg body weight of Pleuran, with white blood cell counts reaching 8500 cells/μL, Furthermore, all concentrations of Pleuran led to enhancements in interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, restoring them to normal levels in animals with induced inflammation. The highest recorded values were observed at 15 mg/kg body weight of Pleuran, with levels of 11.4 ng/L and 73.6 pg/mL. Additionally, the Neutrophil/Lymphocytes Index showed the lowest decrease in the Pleuran at 15 mg/kg body weight, reaching 1.19 compared to 2.4 in the non-treated inflammation-induced groups. In conclusion, the extraction and purification of Pleuran from Pleurotus ostreatus var. ostreatus demonstrated promising antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory properties in laboratory rats. These findings highlight the potential therapeutic application of Pleuran as a natural bioactive compound in biomedical research and clinical practice.