Exploring the Therapeutic Potential of Wild Edible Mushrooms: Safety Evaluation and Isolation of Antimycobacterial Sterols from Afrocantharellus platyphyllus (Heinem.) Tibuhwa

Purpose Afrocantharellus platyphyllus (Heinem.) Tibuhwa (family Cantharellaceae) is a wild mushroom that is used for food and in the management of diseases by communities in Southern Tanzania. The current study investigated the safety and potential of the mushroom A. platyphyllus to yield active antimycobacterial compounds. Methods Preliminary safety evaluation was done using the brine shrimp lethality test (BST) and white albino mice. An 80% ethanolic extract of A . platyphyllus fruiting bodies was separated by using a liquid–liquid partitioning and the anti-mycobacteria compounds were isolated by column chromatography. The structures for isolated compounds were determined using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy. Results In the acute oral toxicity test none of the mice used showed any sign of toxicity during the 14 days’ observation. Similarly, the mushroom extract was mildly toxic to brine shrimps with LC 50 of 61.94 μg/mL. The bioassay guided fractionation yielded two known compounds Cerevisetrol ( 1) and (22E, 24R)-Ergosta-5α, 6α-epoxy-8,22-diene-3β,7α-diol ( 2). These compounds were isolated for the first time from the genus Afrocantharellus and A. platyphyllus species were active against Mycobacteria with MICs ranging from 9.50 to 39.00 µg/mL against Mycobacterium indicus pranii (MIP), 19.00 to 78.00 µg/mL against Mycobacterium madagascariense (MM), 19.00 µg/mL to 78.00 µg/mL against a standard Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain (Mtb1) and 78.00 µg/mL to 312.00 µg/mL against a resistant clinical Mycobacterium isolate (Mtb2) against compounds 1 and 2 respectively. Conclusion A. platyphyllus , an edible mushroom yielded two known compounds with antimycobacterial properties which are potential scaffold for antimycobacterial drug design. These findings support further initiatives to evaluate other traditionally used mushrooms for antimycobacterial and other biological activities.