ANTI-TUMOUR POTENTIAL OF ACTIVE COMPOUNDS (POLYSACCHARIDES) OF WILD MUSHROOMS FROM RAJOURI DIST. OF JAMMU & KASHMIR, INDIA

Natural products have been closely linked through the use of traditional medicines and natural poisons. Mushrooms have an established history of use in traditional oriental medicine, where most medicinal mushroom preparations are regarded as a tonic, that is, they have beneficial health effects without known negative side-effects and can be moderately used on a regular basis without harm. Mushrooms comprise a vast and yet largely untapped source of powerful new pharmaceutical products. In particular, and most importantly for modern medicine, they represent an unlimited source of compounds which are modulators of tumour cell growth. Furthermore, they may have potential as functional foods and sources of novel molecules. In the present study, we have reviewed the compounds with anti-tumor potential in some of the new wild varieties of mushroom of Rajouri Dist. of Jammu and Kashmir region. The main anti-tumor compounds prominent in such species comprises low-molecular-weight compounds viz. quinones, cerebrosides, isoflavones, catechols, amines, triacylglycerols, sesquiterpenes, steroids, organic germanium and selenium) and high-molecular-weight compounds viz. homo and heteroglucans, glycans, glycoproteins, glycopeptides, proteoglycans, proteins and RNA-protein complexes). Amongst all, the polysaccharides in mushroom species also showed potent antitumour activity against sarcoma 180, mammary adenocarcinoma 755, leukemia L-1210 and a host of other tumors