To investigate the anti-inflammatory activity of submerged culture using Cordyceps militaris mycelium, culture-including mycelia was extracted and lyophilized into postbiotics (hot-water extract; CM-HW). HW was fractionated into crude polysaccharide (CM-CP) by ethanol precipitation, and CM-CP was further dialyzed into CM-DCP by dialysis with running water using 12~14 kDa dialysis tube. When the cytotoxicity of subfractions against cells was assessed, no subfraction had a cytotoxic impact that was substantially different from the control groups. In an inflammatory model using LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells, CM-DCP significantly decreased IL-6 and MCP-1 production levels compared to the LPS-control group. CM-DCP also inhibited IL-6 and IL-8 secretion in HaCaT keratinocytes stimulated with TNF-α and IFN-γ. In the meanwhile, the neutral sugar content and mannose ratio of anti-inflammatory CM-DCP were higher than the other fractions, and CM-DCP contained β-1,3/1,6-glucan of 216.1 mg/g. High pressure size exclusion chromatography revealed that CM-DCP contained molecules with a molecular weight range of 5.6 to 144.0 kDa. In conclusion, postbiotics of C. militaris mycelium significantly promoted anti-inflammatory activity, suggesting that neutral polysaccharides including Glc and Man contribute to the anti-inflammation in RAW 264.7 or HaCaT cells.

To investigate the industrial availability of liquid fermentation (PL-ferment) by Phellinus linteus mycelium as a postbiotics for the inhibition of inflammation, PL-ferment was fractionated into culture supernatant (CS), hot-water extract (HW) from PL-ferment, EtOH-precipitate (CP) fractionated from HW, and the dialysate (DCP) of CP. Compared to the other fractions, DCP which is expected to contain exopolysaccharide (EPS) as the major component, significantly decreased the production of NO, IL-6, and MCP-1 in LPS-induced RAW 264.7 cells, and IL-6 and IL-8 in TNF-α and IFN-γ-induced HaCaT cells. The general component analysis results showed that no significant difference in components was observed between the fractions, whereas sugar composition analysis revealed that DCP had decreased glucose and increased mannose contents compared to the other fractions. This suggests that mannose played an important role in the anti-inflammatory activity of the active fraction, DCP. Molecular weight distribution analysis revealed that DCP was mainly composed of low-molecular-weight material-removed high-molecular-weight polysaccharides of 18–638 kDa, suggesting that EPS originated from P. linteus EPS. In conclusion, our results suggest that the DCP of P. linteus mycelium fermentation using the anti-inflammatory activity could be used industrially as postbiotic material.