A comparative study on cytotoxicity and antiproliferative activities of crude extracts and fractions from Iranian wild-growing and cultivated <Emphasis Type="Italic">Agaricus</Emphasis> spp.

Little is known about anticancer capability of wild-growing mushrooms belonging to Agaricus spp. in comparison with their cultivated counterparts. The present study was done to evaluate in vitro antiproliferative effects of dichloromethane-methanol (1:1, v/v) extracts obtained from several Iranian wild strains of Agaricus spp. in comparison with the cultivated white button mushroom, A. bisporus. The wild brown A. bisporus at 500 µg/mL moderately prevented the growth of human prostate cancer (PC3) and human breast cancer (MCF-7) cell lines by 23.54 and 24.57%, respectively, while the wild strains of A. devniensis and A. gennadii at 500 µg/mL had only marginal inhibitory effects. On the contrary, the cultivated A. bisporus significantly inhibited the cell growth at concentrations as low as 125 µg/mL (p?<?0.05). Further, seven distinct fractions were determined based on thin layer chromatography analysis of the cultivated A. bisporus extract. The only active fraction was found to be eluted by petroleum ether (PE):ethyl acetate (EtOAc) (3:2 v/v) which prevented the growth of MCF-7 and PC3 by 74.00 and 63.5%, respectively at 500 µg/mL. Besides, the fraction imposed obvious cytopathic effects in both cell lines at all the tested concentrations, starting from 125 µg/mL. The findings of this study may validate that the known antioxidant potency of wild Agaricus spp. would not necessarily be correlated to their anticancer activity. This research further validated that some semi-polar antiproliferative compounds could be present in the PE/EtOAc-fraction of the cultivated white button mushroom, which warrants further investigations.