Biologic Activity of Spores and Dried Powder from Ganoderma lucidum for the Inhibition of Highly Invasive Human Breast and Prostate Cancer Cells

Objective: Ganoderma lucidum has been used in East Asia as a home remedy to prevent or cure cancer. Furthermore, Ganoderma lucidum is one of the herbs in the herbal mixture PC-SPES that has become an alternative herbal therapy for prostate cancer. Because the dried powder of ganoderma is commercially available as a dietary supplement itself, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the biologic activity of samples of Ganoderma lucidum from different sources. Methods: Samples of Ganoderma lucidum were characterized morphologically and evaluated for their ability to inhibit cell migration of highly invasive breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cells and prostate cancer PC-3 cells. Because the inhibition of cell motility is directly linked to the inhibition of the signaling pathway for constitutively active NF-κB in breast and prostate cancer cells, we determined how different samples of Ganoderma lucidum inhibit constitutively active NF-κB in a reporter gene assay. Results: Some of the samples of Ganoderma lucidum dem...