Mushroom for Improvement

Burrowing into the brains of young caterpillars, Cordyceps militaris is a fungus with control in mind. Yet it also produces a “promising” natural chemical, cordycepin, shown to kill certain human cancer cells. Promising chemicals aren’t always practical or free from side effects, though, so establishing the underlying details is essential to their success in treating patients. Although Cordyceps has had a place in Chinese medicine for over 1500 years, cordycepin was first extracted from a bubbling mushroom broth in 1950. The intervening decades have revealed details carefully – challenged by the compound’s fast metabolism; cordycepin breaks down quickly inside living cells. Now, delving deeper into how cordycepin kills cells, scientists find exciting molecular clues: cordycepin is able to block growth factors that might otherwise help cancers grow, by guiding a set of intracellular signals known as mTOR. This information will be vital to fulfilling on the Cordyceps’ promise.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image by Holger Krisp from Wikimedia Commons
• Research from the School of Pharmacy, Biodiscovery Institute, University of Nottingham, UK
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-3.0
• Research published in FEBS Letters, November 2024