Cytotoxic activity of ethanolic extracts of a selection of macromycetes

Macromycetes are an important factory of bioactive compounds, which have shown to have therapeutic use given their specific cytotoxicity, turning them into new and natural source of pharmaceuticals for treatments against several diseases. The purpose of this paper was to collect new data on the chemical and biological knowledge of the mycobiota that grows wild in the city of lbague (Colombia), in order to try to understand the cytotoxicity of these organisms. Based on abundance and chemotaxonomic criteria and in order to evaluate their biological activity, basidiomes of the following species were collected: Pycnoporus sanguineus, Phellinus gilvus, Pleurotus tubarius, Lenzites elegans and Ganoderma australe. An ethanolic maceration of basidiomes was used as base to perform cytogenotoxicity tests on Aitken cepa. The extracts of P sanguineus and G. australe inhibited A. cepa mitosis in 58.92 % at 8000 mg l(-1)and 53.81% at 2000 mg l(-1), respectively. The extracts of the studied species have shown capacity to cause some genetic changes associated to the concentrations evaluated. This study shows that there is an important potential in wild macromycete biodiversity in the region of Tolima (Colombia), making them potential candidates for future research on clinical essays for the pharmaceutical industry.