In video games Our LastThe world has been turned into a post-apocalyptic nightmare due to a mutated fungus known as Cordyceps, turn people into zombies eat people. Of course it’s a fictional scenario but this parasitic fungus actually exists in real life, where it infects insects, eats the victim’s body and even changes its behavior before killing it and growing. out of its body.
It sounds horrible, Cordyceps pose no such danger to humans — and has even been shown to provide anti-cancer benefits because its main compound is cordycepin. But there’s a problem: It’s hard to grow Cordyceps in the laboratory. The typical method of growing the fungus is on grains such as brown rice. However, concentrations of cordycepin grown in the lab were much lower than those found in naturally infected bugs. The researchers suspect this is due to the low amount of protein in the grains compared to when the fungus infects the protein-rich insects.
In a breakthrough announced Wednesday in magazine Borders in microbiologya team of scientists was able to successfully culture Cordyceps containing high levels of cordycepin use the insect’s body as a growth medium. This new procedure could lead to the research and development of better cordycepin-based anti-cancer treatments. The study’s authors also believe it may also help treat COVID-19.
While popularized in The Last of Us, Cordyceps actually exists and can infect insects. It eats its victims and even changes its behavior before killing it and sprouting from its body.
Reza Saputra via Getty
Of course, all insects are different. Finding the right things to grow the best zombie fungus involves the equally gruesome process of checking for various bugs as a means of development.
Over the course of two months, the study’s authors developed Cordyceps on crickets, silkworm pupae, silkworms, grasshoppers, white-spotted flower bug larvae and Japanese rhinoceros beetles. They found that the fungus thrived best on silkworms and silkworm pupae. The highest concentration of cordycepin developed on the Japanese rhinoceros beetle. Overall, the results are amazing.
“Cordyceps grown on edible insects contain approximately 100 times more cordycepin than Cordyceps about brown rice,” said Mi Kyeong Lee, a pharmaceutical researcher at Chungbuk National University and lead author of the study, in a press release.
While researchers generally believe it’s the protein that helps produce high levels of cordycepin, the study’s authors found that the key actually lies in a fat called oleic acid found in insects. coincide. When they added acid to the insect medium low in cordycepin, the compound’s growth was boosted by up to 50%. This insight could help lead to the development of more efficient cordycepin synthesis.
The study’s authors warn that increasing Cordyceps The use of this method is not yet possible on an industrial scale due to the limited number of insects used in the study. However, Lee says it “may be possible through the use of other insects, which needs to be proven by further studies.”
So despite being portrayed as macabre in popular culture, Cordyceps Mushrooms may soon play a huge role in helping to solve some of society’s most persistent and dangerous health problems. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it doesn’t, you know, transform and perish us all into ferocious, zombie cannibals.
