Comparative study on Extraction of glucan nanoparticles from different two edible mushrooms

It was recently announced that β-glucan with globular small particles size has higher disease resistant capacity due to its induced strong immune activity. Herein, this work was designed to extract the nanoglucans (NGs) by a direct way from mushrooms using acid base procedure. Lentinula edodes (Shiitake) and Pleurotus ostreatus (oyster) mushrooms were used for production of NGs-s and NGs-o, respectively, through boiling with 0.5M NaOH for 24h. The extracted NGs were then characterized using the world-wide tools including LC-Ms, H1NMR, FTIR, SEM, TEM, DLS and UV-Visible spectra. Results from LC mass, proton NMR and FTIR as well as UV-vis analysis affirmed the chemical structure of the obtained β D-glucan in NGs compared with standard β -glucan as a reference. In addition, morphological characteristics of NGs were obtained using SEM and TEM. SEM revealed the porosity of surface with homogeneous distribution particularly in case of NGs-s. TEM also proved the formation of NGs with size ranging from 10-25 nm and 40-50nm for NGs-s and NGs-o, respectively, with needle edge shapes as in NGs-s. However, NGs-o showed a loosely aggregated irregular shapes which may attributed to their low zeta potential. This novel approach opens up opportunities for harnessing mushrooms in preparation of new cost-effective bioactive products.