Medicinal Insect Catharsius molossus Enhances Production of Intracellular Polysaccharides in Ganoderma lucidum SCIM 0819

Chinese medicinal insects were added into the media to investigate their effects on the mycelial growth and polysaccharide formation by Ganoderma lucidum SCIM 0819. The experiments were carried out in submerged fermentation using shake flasks. The results show that addition of C. molossus at 5.0 g/L lead to significant increase in intracellular polysaccharides (IPS) concentration from 1.48 ± 0.12 g/L to 1.85 ± 0.17 g/L. However, it had no stimulatory effects on cell growth (P > 0.05). Other types of insects could not stimulate IPS formation, and all the insects showed inhibitory effect with an increase in the concentration. We further studied the effect of addition of C. molossus on IPS components of G. lucidum. The results indicate that there were no new components in IPS obtained by the addition of C. molossus, suggesting the biosynthetic pathways of IPS had not been changed.