Lignosus rhinocerus

Lignosus rhinocerus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Fungi
Division: Basidiomycota
Class: Agaricomycetes
Order: Polyporales
Family: Polyporaceae
Genus: Lignosus
Species: L. rhinocerus
Binomial name
Lignosus rhinocerus
(Cooke) Ryvarden

Lignosus rhinocerus or more commonly known as Tiger Milk Mushroom belongs to Polyporaceae family in the phylum Basidiomycota.[1][2][3] Tiger milk mushroom was regarded as indispensable medicinal mushroom with the ability to cure numerous aliments. This fungus geographically distributed only in tropical rainforest in the region of South China, Thailand,Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Papua New Guinea.[4][5]

In Malaysia, Tiger Milk Mushroom or more often known 'Cendawan Susu Rimau' hailed as Malaysia’s national treasure and has been used traditionally as health tonic by the aborigines. According to the aborigines folklore, the name implies based on story where this relatively unknown fungus grow on the spot where a tigress drips its milk while feeding her cubs.

History

Tiger milk mushroom was first brought to the light only in 1664 when European government agent was given this mythical product when sailed to the South East Asian Region. According to The Diary of John Evelyn (Publication dated 22 June 1664), this medicinal mushroom named as ‘Lac tygridis’ meaning tiger’s milk. In his publication also recorded that this fungus was used by the local people to treat disease that European doctors found no cure. In 1890, Sir Henry Nicholas Ridley, the Father of Malaya’s Rubber industry, recorded that this fungus was an important medicinal mushroom used by local communities.[6] He even attempted to cultivate it but failed. In the same year, this fungus scientifically documented by Cooke and named it as Fomes rhinocerotis based on a specimen found in Penang.[7] Today, Tiger Milk Mushroom more commonly had known with its scientific name Lignosus rhinocerotis/rhinocerus.

Botanical Description

Tiger milk mushroom structurally characterized to have central stipitate pileus [that is, mushroom cap growing at the end of a stipe (stem) arising from a district buried tuber or sclerotium.[8] Unlike most other type of mushroom, this fungus has unique growth habit where their growth is solitary and can find only one stalk at time. This species classified as very precious and rare because of its uniqueness of the growth habit where distance between one stalk to another stalk not less than 5 km.

Tiger milk mushroom believed to emerge from the very spot where the milk of a prowling tiger has dropped on the ground. The underground fungus has tuber/sclerotia where it will remain there for month, years and decades. The presence of this sclerotium can only be noticeable when the mushroom sprouts out. Medicinal properties of tiger milk mushroom only found in underground tuber or sclerotium, but unfortunately formation of cap and stem would have depleted most of its essence.

Benefits

Tiger Milk Mushroom has been used traditionally for over 400 years as a health tonic by the aborigines or native for its healing properties on more than 15 types of medical ailments including treat lung and respiratory disease such as asthma, cough, fever, vomit, breast cancer, chronic hepatitis, gastric ulcer, food poisoning, healing wound and indigestion. Aborigines also boil it with Tongkat ali and used it as general tonic to strengthen the body.[9]

Cultivated Tiger Milk Mushroom

As a result of its unique growth habit, it is as difficult as to find a needle in a haystack. Perhaps, even the mobilization of all aborigines to wonder into the deep jungle may not able to supply 100 kilograms of wild Tiger Milk Mushroom. Although the medicinal value of Tiger Milk Mushroom is vastly known, however inconsistent supply of raw material and uneven quality of the harvest coupled by lack of research, causing many potential of the traditional health tonic cannot be further explored.

In the past, this mushroom has never been able to enter large-scale commercialization, until Dr.Tan Chon Seng, a researcher from MARDI (Malaysian Agricultural Research & Development Institute) make a breakthrough in 2008 by successfully cultivating Tiger Milk Mushroom via solid fermentation technology.[10]

Scientific Proof On Medicinal Properties Of Tiger Milk Mushroom

Tiger Milk Mushroom has received much interest in recent years owing to its wide-ranging enthobotanical uses and recent success in domestication of the mushroom. Many studies have been initiated to examine its safety and biopharmacological efficacy in order to validate its enthobotanical claims. Research findings revealed that Tiger Milk Mushroom sclerotia contain various biologically active substances such as polysaccharides, the polysaccharides-protein complexes (PSPC) and β-glucan, which demonstrate significant anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-proliferative and immuno-modulating effect.

Anti inflammatory effect Sclerotium of Tiger Milk Mushroom is used as a traditional medicine to relieve cough, asthma and chronic hepatitis and it is presumably related to its anti-inflammatory effect. “The cold water extract showed strong anti-inflammatory effects comparable to standard drug, indomethacin, on rats with carrageenan induced inflammation’.[11]

Immuno-Modulating effect Extracts of the sclerotia of Lignosus rhinocerus, particularly its polysaccharide constituents, showed stimulatory effects on human innate immune cells such as macrophage, natural killer cellsor NK cells and T-lymphocetes.[12] A further study has confirmed Tiger Milk Mushroom exhibited immuno-modulatory effect by stimulating human innate immune cells and T-helper cells.[13] The same constituents have also been associated with immune modulation in pre-clinical study. Hence, it’s hypothesized that the same immune properties also have anti-tumour effects.[14]

Anti-proliferative Effect Tiger Milk Mushroom sclerotial polysaccharides possessed remarkable anti-tumor activity on the cancer cell implanted mice and notable direct cytotoxic effects on various human leukemic cell lines, human breast carcinoma and human lung carcinoma cell lines.[15][16] Preliminary analysis suggested that Tiger Milk Mushroom exerts its anti-proliferative activity in a selective manner towards cancer cells through the induction of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis.

Anti-Oxidant Effect Cold water extracts of the sclerotia of Lignosus rhinocerus showed strong superoxide anion scavenging activity, which is useful in preventing certain type of oxidative stress”.,[17][18]

Neurite-Stimulating Activity. An in-vitro study has reported that aqueous extract of Tiger Milk Mushroom sclerotia contained NGF-like compound/s that enhanced neurite outgrowth activity. The aqueous extract stimulated neurite outgrowth in PC-12 cell lines and combination of nerve growth factor (NGF) and the extract had additive effects and enhanced neurite outgrowth.[19]

Novel Prebiotic The non-digestible carbohydrates extracted from Tiger Milk Mushroom sclerotia were shown to stimulate the growth of Bifidobacterium longum and Lactobacillus brevis, thus suggesting its potential application as novel prebiotics for gastrointestinal health.[20]

Safety Assessment

Tiger Milk Mushroom has been extensively used safely for over hundreds of years with not known toxicity and side effect. Accordance with OECD guidelines various stringent toxicity studies have been conducted and its safety has been assessed scientifically. Preclinical toxicological evaluation of the cultivated sclerotium of Lignosus rhinocerus on the subject rats showed the treatment did not establish any pathological changes in the liver, kidney, heart, spleen, and lung and also had no adverse effect on the fertility of the subject nor induce tetratogenic effect on their offspring.[21][22] In addition, screening by The Toxicology Laboratory of the National Poison Center, Malaysia concluded no corticosteroid found in the cultivated Tiger Milk Mushroom.[23]

References

  1. ↑ Ryvarden, L. and Johansen, I. 1980. A preliminary polypore flora of East Africa. Fungiflora. Oslo. 1-636.
  2. ↑ Douanla-Meli C, Langer E. (2003). "A new species of Lignosus (Polyporaceae) from Cameroon". Mycologia 86: 389–94.
  3. ↑ .Tam CS, Ng S-T, Tan J. (2013). "Two new species of Lignosus (Polyporaceae) from Malaysia — L. tigris and L. cameronensis". Mycotaxon 123: 193–204. doi:10.5248/123.193.
  4. ↑ Núñez, M. and Ryvarden, L. 2001. East Asian polypores 2. Polyporaceae s. lato. Synopsis Fungorum 14: 170– 522.
  5. ↑ Cui, B.K., Tang, L.P. and Dai, Y.C. 2010. Morphological and molecular evidences for a new species of Lignosus (Polyporales, Basidiomycota) from tropical China. Mycologia Progress 1-5.
  6. ↑ Ridley HN.1890.On the so-called Tiger's milk,'susu rimau'of the Malays[j].Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society(22):341-344.
  7. ↑ Cooke.1879.'XV.Enumeration of Polyporus [J].Transactions and Proceedings of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh,13(1):131-159.
  8. ↑ Ryvarden, L. and Johansen, I. 1980. A preliminary polypore flora of East Africa. Fungiflora. Oslo. 1-636.
  9. ↑ (Chang, Y.S. and Lee, S.S. (2001). Utilization of wild mushrooms by the Temuans in Selangor,Malaysia. Poster presented at CFFPR 2001, 100 Year Celebration of Forestry Research, 1-3 Oct 2001, Nikko Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.)
  10. ↑ Tan C S, Ng S T, Vikineswary S, et al. 2009. Development of Lignosus rhinocems (Cendawan Susu Rimau) cultivar-Bring to life to a valuable Malaysian medicinal mushroom [M] . International Congress of Malaysian Society for Microbiology ( ICMSM 2009) . Penang, Malaysia.
  11. ↑ S.S. Lee, et al., “Anti-Inflammatory Effect of the Sclerotium of Lignosus rhinocerotis (Cooke) Ryvarden, the Tiger Milk Mushroom,” BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 14, 359(2014).
  12. ↑ Wong K.H, Connie K.M. Lai, Peter C.K. Cheung. Stimulation of Human Innate Immune Cells by Medicinal Mushroom Sclerotial Polysaccharides. International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms, 1(3): 215-223, 2009
  13. ↑ Wong KH, Lai CKM, Peter CCK. Immunomodulatory activities of mushroom sclerotial polysaccharides. Food Hydrocoll. 2010; 25(2):150-58
  14. ↑ (Lai, C. K. M., Wong, K. H., & Cheung, P. C. K. (2008). Antiproliferative effects of sclerotial polysaccharides from Polyporus rhinocerus Cooke (Aphyllophoromycetideae) on different kinds of leukemic cells. International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms, 10:255-64.
  15. ↑ Lai CKM, WongKH, Cheung PCK. Antiproliferative effects of sclerotial polysaccharides from Polyporus rhinocerus cooke (Aphyllophoromycetideae) on different kinds of leukemic cells. Int J Med Mushrooms. 2008; 10(3):255–64.
  16. ↑ Lee, M. L., Tan, N. H., Fung, S. Y., Tan, C. S., & Ng, S. T. (2012). The Antiproliferative Activity of Sclerotia of Lignosus rhinocerus (Tiger Milk Mushroom). Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2012.
  17. ↑ Yap, Y. H., Tan, N., Fung, S., Aziz, A. A., Tan, C., & Ng, S. (2013). Nutrient composition, antioxidant properties, and anti-proliferative activity of Lignosus rhinocerus Cooke sclerotium. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 93(12), 2945-2952.
  18. ↑ Yap, Y. H., Tan, N., Fung, S., Aziz, A. A., Tan, C., & Ng, S. (2014).Energy and Nutritional Composition of Tiger Milk Mushroom (Lignosus tigris Chon S. Tan) Sclerotia and the Antioxidant Activity of Its Extracts.International Journal of Medicine Science. 2014; 11(6): 602–607.
  19. ↑ Lee-Fang Eik, Murali Naidu, Pamela David, Kah-Hui Wong, Yee-Shin Tan, Vikineswary Sabaratnam. Lignosus rhinocerus (Cooke) Ryvarden: A Medicinal Mushroom That Stimulates Neurite Outgrowth in PC 12 Cells. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2011; 2012 (2012):7
  20. ↑ Gao S. Connie K.M. Lai, Peter C.K. Cheung, Nondigestible Carbohydrates Isolated from Medicinal Mushroom Sclerotia as Novel Prebiotics. International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms 11(1):1-8 (2009).
  21. ↑ S.S. Lee, et al., “Evaluation of the Sub-Acute Toxicity of the Sclerotium of Lignosus rhinocerus (Cooke), The Tiger Milk Mushroom,” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 138, 192–200 (2011)
  22. ↑ S.S. Lee, et al., “Preclinical Toxicological Evaluations of the Sclerotium of Lignosus rhinocerus (Cooke), The Tiger Milk Mushroom,” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 147, 157–163 (2013).
  23. ↑ Tan,C.S.,Ng,S.T.,YeannieYap,H.Y.,Lee,S.S.,Lee,M.L.,Fung,S.Y.,Tan,N.H.,Sim, S.M., 2012.Breathing new life to a Malaysia lost national treasure—the Tiger- Milk mushroom(Lignosus rhinocerotis). In:Zhang,J.Wang,H.Chen,M.(Eds.), Mushroom ScienceXVIII:Proceedings of the 18th Congress of the International Society for Mushroom Science.Beijing:ChinaAgriculturePress, pp. 66–71.).

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