ANTI-MITOTIC ACTIVITY OF GANODERMA APPLANATUM

Traditionally, mushrooms have importance in the diet. Since they possess both nutritional and medicinal value, research on mushrooms is the new area for developing lead molecules to treat cancer and other ailments. Ganoderma is a famous genus in the medicinally important mushrooms. Cancer is a fatal disease in which uncontrolled proliferation is the major crunch point to be considered. The current work is carried out to screen antimitotic activity of Ganoderma applanatum on legume seeds. Three legume seeds viz., Bengal gram, green gram, and fenugreek were selected for the study and the ability of the methanol extract to inhibit the germination was calculated. The results indicated that the extract is having a significant inhibition in the growth of the radicle of the seeds. The antimitotic activity can be attributed to the chemical constituents present in the extract. The phytochemical screening showed that the species is rich in various phytochemicals like alkaloids, glycosides, terpenoids, saponins, steroids, tannins, carbohydrates and proteins. These bioactive compounds, especially the tannins, terpenoids and steroids might be responsible for the said activity. Further research is in the process to identify and isolate the secondary metabolite which is responsible for the reported activity.