Prospecção de enzimas proteolíticas expressas por basidiomicetos, com vistas à futuras aplicações biotecnológicas

Abstract

The use of macrofungi (mushrooms) as food and/or medicine has a long tradition by Asian peoples, due to their nutritional and medicinal properties. In recent years, with the rise of technology, many biologically active molecules isolated from macrofungi have been evaluated for their efficiency in the treatment of some diseases and/or other biotechnological applications. However, in the Amazon scenario, little is known about macrofungi, as well as their potential to produce bioactive molecules. Thus, this work aimed to prospect proteases and fibrinolytic enzymes in macrofungal mycelia, when cultivated in different culture media, in order to verify which species and/or strain has the greatest potential for synthesis of these proteins, aiming at future studies involving production and application of these molecules in the health area. The macrofungi Auricularia sp., Ganoderma lucidum, G. tropicum, Grifola frondosa, Lentinus strigosus, Macrocybe sp., and Pleurotus ostreatus strains (474, 542 and 885) were cultivated in oat agar (AA), potato dextrose agar (BDA), casein agar (AC), Czapek Dox agar (ACD), soy flour agar (AFS), malt agar (AM), MFI, MILK and MYSA. The fungal hyphae were submitted to protein extraction and assays were performed to determine proteolytic and fibrinolytic activities. MA was the most favorable culture medium for the growth of the fungal species studied, mainly Pleurotus ostreatus 474 and Lentinus strigosus, reaching maximum growth after four and five days of cultivation, respectively. Auricularia sp. when cultivated in AFS it showed the highest serine proteases and total proteases activities. While, P. ostreatus 542 exhibited higher activity of cysteine proteases. Macrocybe sp. in AFS exhibited the highest fibrinolytic activity. Therefore, it is suggested that the AA medium was the most favorable for the growth of the species. In addition, all media induced the production of proteolytic enzymes, however, the production of fibrinolytic proteases was promising in AFS, AM and MFI. While the species Lentinus strigosus and Macrocybe sp. stood out for the production of fibrinolytic enzymes.