Phenolic Acid Profiling of Lactarius hatsudake Extracts, Anti-Cancer Function and Its Molecular Mechanisms

Cancer is still the leading cause of death across the world, and there is a lack of efficient therapies.Lactarius hatsudakeis a mushroom with a food and medicine homology that contains numerous biologically active substances. This study aimed to investigate the composition of extracts fromLactarius hatsudake(L. hatsudake) and their anti-cancer function and molecular mechanisms. Our results showed that the total phenolic content ofL. hatsudakeextracts was 139.46 ± 5.42 mg/g. The following six phenolic compounds were identified fromL. hatsudakeextracts by HPLC and UPLC-QTOF/MS: gallic acid, pyrogallol, chlorogenic acid, ferulic acid, myricetin, and cinnamic acid. Colorectal cancer cell HCT116 and hepatic cancer cell HepG2 were used to evaluate the anti-cancer function of theL. hatsudakeextracts. Compared with HepG2 cells, theL. hatsudakeextracts showed stronger anti-cancer activity against HCT116 cells and these were used to study molecular mechanisms. The results indicated that theL. hatsudakeextracts could arrest the cancer cell cycle and inhibit cancer cell proliferation, which may be mediated by the MAPK/NFκB/AP-1 signalling pathway; theL. hatsudakeextracts also promoted cancer cell apoptosis through a mitochondrial-dependent pathway. Taken together, these findings demonstrate thatL. hatsudakeethanol extracts contain six main phenolics and illustrate the remarkable potentiality ofL. hatsudakeas a source of natural phenolics for cancer prevention and as an adjuvant in the treatment of functional foods.Keywords:Lactarius hatsudake;phenolic acids;anti-cancer;molecular mechanism