Shiitake mushroom, the common Japanese name for Lentinus edodes (Fig. 1), derives from the mushroom associated with the shii tree (Castanopsis cuspidate Schottky) and take, the Japanese word for mushroom (Table 1). Because Japan is the world leader in production of this type of mushroom, the mushroom is now widely known by this name. These mushrooms are renowned in Far East countries (e.g., Jap...

Sparse coding presents practical advantages for sensory representations and memory storage. In the insect olfactory system, the representation of general odors is dense in the antennal lobes but sparse in the mushroom bodies, only one synapse downstream. In locusts, this transformation relies on the oscillatory structure of antennal lobe output, feed-forward inhibitory circuits, intrinsic prope...

The human demand for protein-rich food is everincreasing which contributes to the expansion of mushroom industry in the world. Statistically, the word production of mushroom industry has reached a level greater than 25 million tons (Yang et al., 2015). In spite of many advantages, the production of mushrooms generates large volumes of solid waste products (called spent mushroom substrate) which...

We investigated the effect of nitrogen fixing Azotobacter bioinoculant on the mycelial growth and the rate of substrate utilization by Pleurotus eous. The synergistic or antagonistic role of the microorganism during dual culturing with the mushroom or the competitor molds Trichoderma viride, and Trichoderma reesi was studied. Azotobacter was inhibitory to the molds, which are competitive to the...

Many neural lineages display a temporal pattern, but the mechanisms controlling the ordered production of neuronal subtypes remain unclear. Here, we show that Drosophila let-7 and miR-125, cotranscribed from the let-7-Complex (let-7-C) locus, regulate the transcription factor chinmo to control temporal cell fate in the mushroom body (MB) lineage. We find that let-7-C is activated in postmitotic...

The use of mushrooms contributes to human nutrition by providing low lipid content of lipids and high dietary fiber content, as well as significant content of other biologically active compounds such as polysaccharides, minerals, vitamins, and polyphenolic antioxidants. This study aimed to determine the content of polyphenols and polysaccharides, as well as the cytotoxic and antioxidative prope...

Insect mushroom bodies are required for diverse behavioral functions, including odor learning and memory. Using the numerically simple olfactory pathway of the Drosophila melanogaster larva, we provide evidence that the formation of appetitive olfactory associations relies on embryonic-born intrinsic mushroom body neurons (Kenyon cells). The participation of larval-born Kenyon cells, i.e., neur...

Hypersensitivity pneumonitis has been described in mushrooms workers caused by exposure to mushroom or fungal spores in the compost used to grow mushrooms. We describe two mushroom workers who developed hypersensitivity pneumonitis due to exposure to avian proteins found in poultry manure which was used in producing mushroom compost. Both workers were employed in the compost production area. Bo...

Relatively little is known about the neural circuitry underlying sex-specific behaviors. We have expressed the feminizing gene transformer in genetically defined subregions of the brain of male Drosophila, and in particular within different domains of the mushroom bodies. Mushroom bodies are phylogenetically conserved insect brain centers implicated in associative learning and various other asp...

Mushroom dendritic spine structures are essential for memory storage, and the loss of mushroom spines may explain memory defects in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here we show a significant reduction in the fraction of mushroom spines in hippocampal neurons from the presenilin-1 M146V knockin (KI) mouse model of familial AD (FAD). The stabilization of mushroom spines depends on STIM2-mediated neuron...