Chemical Composition, Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Shiitake Mushrooms (Lentinus edodes)

Shiitake mushrooms (Lentinus edodes) are renowned as the "King of mountain treasures" in China due to their abundant nutritional and health-enhancing properties. Intensive chemical investigations of the fruiting bodies and mycelium of Shiitake mushrooms (Lentinus edodes) afforded five new compounds (1-5), named lentinmacrocycles A-C and lentincoumarins A-B, along with fifteen known compounds (6-20). Their structures and absolute configurations were elucidated by extensive spectroscopic analysis, including one-and two-dimensional (1D and 2D) NMR spectroscopy, circular dichroism (CD), and high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HR-ESI-MS). The anti-inflammatory activity test showed that lentincoumarins A (4), (3S)-7-hydroxymellein (9), (3R)-6-hydroxymellein (11) and succinic acid (18) exhibited strong NO inhibitory effects (IC50 < 35 mu M), and that (3S)-5-hydroxymellein (10) and (3R)-6-hydroxymellein (11) exhibited potent TNF-alpha inhibitory effects (IC50 < 80 mu M) and were more potent than the positive control, Indomethacin (IC50 = 88.5 +/- 2.1 mu M). The antioxidant activity test showed that (3R)-6-hydroxymellein (11) had better DPPH radical scavenging activity (IC50 = 25.2 +/- 0.5 mu M).