The effect of trehalose on the preservation of spawns of mushroom fungi was examined. The vegetative mycelia of Lentinula edodes, Flammulina velutipes and Pleurotus ostreatus were grown on several potato trehalose agar media. Then, the mycelial disks were prepared by using a cork-borer, and they were stored in a petri dish for 1〜10 days in a refrigerator at 4℃ at less than 20% relative humidity (RH). After storage, the mycelial disks were incubated again in a glucose peptone yeast extract (GPY) liquid medium. As a result, the yield of L. edodes mycelia grown in a potato dextrose (2 %) agar medium markedly decreased upon the storing of the spawns. In contrast, the yield of mycelia which had been grown in the potato trehalose (1〜5 %) agar media slightly decreased. This trehalose effect on storage was observed markedly in the case of P. ostreatus, but not in the case ofF. velutipes. Furthermore, when the vegetative mycelia of L. edodes stored as the spawn was cultured in the trehalose (2%) liguid medium, the fruit-body yield increased about 1.5 times as compared with that of the glucose (2%) liguid medium.

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The influences of media consisting of various concentrations of glucose and peptone on the carbon and nitrogen availability of mycelia of Pleurotus ostreatus during flask shaking cultures were studied. PH, glucose concentration in broths and mycelial yields were varied with the C/N ratios of the media, but the influences of glucose concentrations on mycelial yields were greater than those of the C/N ratios. The contents of carbon and nitrogen in the mycelia were increased with a decrease of the C/N ratios. However, the increases of the yield in G4 (4% glucose) media were bigger than those in G2 (2% glucose) media. The availabilities of carbon by the mycelia were affected more with the glucose concentrations than the C/N ratios, while those of nitrogen were affected by the C/N ratios. The C/N ratios of the media produced both the highest mycelial yield and the nitrogen content of the mycelia were 24.2 in G2 media and 45.1 in G4 media, respectively.

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166 kinds of free amino acids of wild mushrooms were analyzed. Mushrooms rich in total free amino acid contents were Leucocoprinus bresadolae Schulz. (949.8 3 μmol) and Agaricus abruptibulbus Peck (766 μmol), but those poor in total free amino acid contents included Tremella foliacea Pers (20.3 μmol). For the protein amino acids, high contents of these amino acids included alanine, glutamic acid and glutamine, while low contents included methionine, cystine and tryptophane. For non-protein amino acids, high contents included ornitine and γ-aminobutyric acid, while the low contents included 3-methylhistidine, 1-methylhistidine and citrulline. By a combination of this study with our previously reported data, a statistical analysis became possible. Agaricaceae for the total amino acid content was proved to be significantly high at the 5 % level, while Tricholomataceae had the second highest content. Moreover, in Agaricaceae, the contents of aspartic acid, serine, asparagine, glutamic acid, gluamine, proline, alanine, leucine, lysine and ornitine were also significantly higher at the 5 % level than those of other mushroom families. In almost all the families, alanine, glutamine and glutamic acid were the three major components and they occupied 30.1〜43.8 % of the total free amino acids. The pattern similarities of the free amino acids were also investigated. The pattern ratios of nearly all the families were greater than 0.9, but between Coprinaceae and Pleurotaceae, Coprinaceae and Amanitaceae, Coprinaceae and Agaricaceae, Coprinaceae and Boletaceae, Coprinaceae and Polyporaceae and Boletaceae and Agaricaceae, the pattern ratios were less than 0.8. Coprinaceae tended to have a unique composition of amino acids.

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A sawdust-based substrate of Shiitake (Lentinula edodes) was soaked in diluted solutions of corn steep liquor (CSL) and fatty acid sucrose esters. As a result, the fruit body of the soaking treatment culture medium using CSL and fatty acid sucrose esters was larger than the fruit bodies which used only water. Next, a CSL liquid mixture was produced adding vitamin B_1 and fatty acid sucrose esters. Two methods of testing the nutrition of the CSL liquid mixture in a sawdust-based substrate of Shiitake (L. edodes) were examined : (1) CSL liquid mixture added to the medium culture at preparation. (2) CSL liquid mixture applied during soaking before fructification. Though neither method increased the number of fruit bodies, although the fruit bodies were enlarged. The shapes of the fruit bodies are usually miniaturized on the culture medium, therefore the soaking treatment was repeated. The soaking treatment using CSL liquid mixture was then conducted for this cultured medium, and this attempt to increase the yield resulted in enlargement of the fruit body, indicating that CSL provides effective nutrition in the sawdust-based substrate of Shiitake (L. edodes).

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Antitumor activity (in vivo, in vitro) and antioxidant activity tests were examined using liquid culture mycelium and fruit body derived from A.blazei component. As antitumor activity test, tumor inhibition ratio after the mice tumor cell inoculation (in vivo) was examined, and in addition, the test on the direct control for the hemetologic malignancy cell (in vitro) was carried out. And, the antioxidant test examined the carbonyl quantity as an index. In the animal experiment, antitumor activity was respectively 84.5% and 85.7% in the hot water extract of mycelium and fruit body, and both could not accept the significance. And, it was effective that both mycelia and fruit bodies suppressed in the test using the hemetologic malignancy cell (in vitro) concentration-dependent. It was effective that in the antioxidant activity test, it suppressed oxidation in Fenton reaction to about 70%, and that it suppresses oxidation in NaClO to about 60 %.

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