Hot water soluble extract was prepared from Hericium erinaceus and its neuritogenic activity on PC12h cells was analyzed, which is a clone originating from a rat pheochromocytomon. The moisture content of freeze dried hot water extract was 12.08%. The extract was mainly composed of carbohydrate (51.24%) followed by crude protein (24.04%), crude fat (0.26%), dietary fiber (5.09), and ash (12.18%). Fatty acids, glucan and inorganic constituents were found as minor components. The neuritogenic activity of hot water extract was evaluated under microscopic observation of neurite outgrowth in PC12h cells and by measuring the neurite length of induvidual cell. The extract exhibited strong effect of neurite outgrowth in a dose-dependent manner from 0.01 mg/mL to 1 mg/mL, in which longer neurite outgrowth was observed as the treatment dose increased.

Antioxidant activities of Hericium erinaceum was in vestigated in subfractions of methanol extract such as hexane, chloroform, ethylacetate, butanol and water subfractions. Chlorofrom fraction exhibited the highest antioxidant activity and showed the highest level of total phenolic contents. The level of total phenolics may be correlated with the antioxidant activities of the subfractions. Therefore, the phenolic compound in the chloroform subfractions exhibiting high antioxidant acticity was identified by mass spectrometry using LC-MS/MS. In addition, hot water extract of this mushroom were tested for antimutagenic activity by Ames Salmonellaassay.Thisextractshowed inhibitiory effect on the mutagenesis induced in Salmonella typhimurium strain TA100 and TA98 by the directly actingmutagen 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide(0.15μg/plate) and sodium azide (0.5μg/plate). The extract also inhibited mutagenesis induced in Salmonella typhimurium strain TA100 and TA98 by the indirectly actingmutagen 2-aminoanthracen(2μg/plate) at 5000μg/plate and 200 μg/plate, respectively.