Developmental toxicity assessment of medicinal mushroom Antrodia cinnamomea T.T. Chang et W.N. Chou (higher Basidiomycetes) submerged culture mycelium in rats.

Antrodia cinnamomea is a Taiwanese medicinal mushroom with high antioxidant and polysaccharide content. The objective of this study is to investigate developmental toxicity of A. cinnamomea in pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats. Animals were daily gavaged with A. cinnamomea mycelium at dosage levels of 0 (reverse osmosis water), 50, 150, and 500 mg/kg from gestation day (GD) 6 to 15. All dams were sacrificed on GD 20 and were subjected to cesarean section. Fetuses were examined for external, visceral, and skeletal abnormalities. All copulated females survived until the end of the study. No significant differences were recorded in body weight change, food consumption, and maternal gestational parameters. Only two fetal malformations were noted in 970 fetuses from the treatment groups. Some variations, such as enlarged fontanel, split sternebrae, absent sacral, absent caudal vertebral centra, absent thoracic centra, absent 13th-14th ribs, and fused ribs, were found during the skeletal examination, but no treatment-induced abnormalities occurred. No dose dependency was observed in any of the developmental variations. Overall observation of foetal malformations from rats given A. cinnamomea mycelium during pregnancy demonstrates that this material is not teratogenic at doses up to 500 mg/kg. It is concluded that A. cinnamomea BCRC 35398 mycelium has no teratogenic effects in female rats and is safe to be used as a functional food ingredient.