Appraisal of Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Activities of Various Extracts from the Fruiting Bodies of Pleurotus florida

Pleurotus florida has been widely used for nutritional and medicinal purposes. The present study was conducted to evaluate the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of the fruiting bodies of P. florida extracted with acetone, methanol, and hot water. The antioxidant activities of the acetone and methanol extracts of P. florida showed stronger inhibition of β-carotene-linoleic acid compared to that of the hot water extract. The acetone extract (8 mg/mL) showed a high reducing power of 1.86. The acetone and methanol extracts showed more effective DPPH radical scavenging activities than the hot water extract. The chelating effect of the extracts at lower concentrations was significantly effective compared to that of the positive control. Thirteen phenolic compounds were detected from acetonitrile and hydrochloric acid solvent extracts. Nitric oxide (NO) production and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression in lipolysaccahride (LPS) stimulated RAW 264.7 cells, a murine macrophage cell line, were inhibited significantly by the mushroom extracts in a concentration dependent manner. The anti-inflammatory activity on carrageenan-induced edema in the rat hind-paw reduced significantly by the mushroom extracts. Therefore, we have demonstrated that P. florida fruiting bodies possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activites related to their inhibitory activities on NO production, iNOS protein expression, and carrageenan-induced paw edema in rats. The results suggest that the fruiting bodies of P. florida are a good source of natural antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents.