In Taiwan, oral cancer is the 4th leading cause of male cancer mortality, and it is still increasing in recent years. Cigarette smoking, betel quid chewing and alcohol consumption are popular that imposed the risk in individuals to develop oral cancer. The Basiodiomycete fungus Agaricus blazei Murill (A. blazei) is a dietary mushrooms and had been known for it’s immune-enhancing, antitumor, antioxidation, antiviral and anti-mutagenesis function. However, the exact anticancer mechanisms of A. blazei on human oral cancer cells are still unclear. In the present study, we investigated the effect of 50% ethanol crude extracts and hot water extracts of A. blazei on oral cancer CAL 27 cells. We observed that 0.9 mg/ml and 0.7 mg/ml A. blazei could cause morphological changes and significantly decreased cell viability after 48 hours treatment. The results showed that 50% ethanol crude extracts and hot water extracts of A. blazei inhibited cell proliferation, induced the levels of Ca2+ concentration, decreased the levels of mitochondria membrane potential, and caused cell cycle arrest in G0/G1 phase and commitment to apoptosis. Additionally, A. blazei could induce DNA fragmentation, a characteristic of apoptosis. The expression of apoptosis-related protein including AIF, cytochrome c, and caspase-3 was increased. Overall, we demonstrated that 50% ethanol crude extracts and hot water extracts of A. blazei could induce CAL 27 cells apoptosis via the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria into the cytoplasm and induced the activation of caspase-3.
