Ricerc@Sapienza

A fungal collection has been recently established at the School of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology (SPST), Tianjin University, Tianjin, China. The collection is mainly based on strains of filamentous fungi preserved under water or mineral oil and by cryoconservation, but also includes some yeasts and bacteria of particular interest for human health. The strains are also kept as actively growing cultures on special low nutrient agar. Our aim is to use the significantly wide range of expertise represented in SPST, encompassing microbial taxonomy and ecology, molecular biology, chemistry and synthetic biology, to clarify the identity and role of microorganisms collected and analysed in our research activity. A substantial portion of our mycological research projects focus on medicinal fungi. Some projects are still in their initial phase to perform an in-depth analysis of the diversity of human body associated fungi and their involvement in human health and disease. Moreover, we are planning to carry out a number of research projects to assess fungal diversity associated with key human diseases, such as mycosis, sepsis, meningitis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and gut microbiome related diseases. We will keep in our fungal collection clinical isolates as a reference for the scientific community for new fungus diagnostic assays validation. One of our main research interests is currently represented by medicinal mushrooms, including biodiversity, conservation, taxonomy, ecology, biochemistry and pharmacology. We present the preliminary results of an international scientific cooperation between SPST and Sapienza University of Rome for the identification, isolation in culture and chemical characterization of medicinal mushroom species collected in nature. During a recent intensive sampling activity performed in protected areas in Italy, characterised by different forest habitats, we collected basidiomata of several wood-decaying basidiomycetes belonging to different genera, mostly in the families Hymenochaetaceae and Polyporaceae, such as Fomes, Inonotus, Phellinus, and Trametes. Fungal taxa were identified based on observations preferably made on fresh collected sporomata, but also on dried specimens, by analysing organoleptic characters, macro- and micro-anatomical features as well as macro- and micro-chemical properties. During each survey, notes on morphological characters and ecological conditions of observed macrofungi were recorded in the field, and a representative collection of fruit bodies was taken to the laboratory for subsequent microscopic examination and fungal isolation on different media. Part of fresh material was frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at –80 °C for molecular identification, in particular for taxa with not clear morphological delimitation, which require phylogenetic analysis. Preliminary chemical analysis of the wood decaying basidiomycete fruit bodies and isolated mycelia, using HPLC and LC-MS, revealed diverse secondary metabolites present in several of the samples. Current studies are focusing on the identification of secondary metabolites using metabolomic strategies, and on the isolation of key compounds active in a broad spectrum of biological assays.