Picking up tomorrow's medicines
When mycologists from very different backgrounds combine their skills to discover the drugs of the future: the story of a collaborative adventure led at the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE).
Searching for mushroom-derived drugs to treat neurodegenerative diseases: this is the quest that brings together Sylvie Rapior and Franck Richard (University of Montpellier) as well as Jean-Michel Bellanger (Inserm). Three mycologists with radically different profiles...
"Mycologist ecosystem"
"Mycology is an infinite diversity of professions," explains Sylvie Rapior. We form an ecosystem of mycologists!" she laughs...
At the beginning of the process, there is Sylvie and her team of chemists. It is up to them to extract from the selected mushrooms: it is this cocktail of molecules that we will test on living organisms.
It is here that Jean-Michel Bellanger takes over. Passionate about mycology, this geneticist-biologist had the idea of testing these molecules on nematodes (C. elegans). This small, transparent worm, barely a millimetre long, is a model organism often used in molecular biology. "It makes it possible to reproduce the characteristic signs of Parkinson's disease. And therefore to identify the possible presence of neuroprotective molecules, likely to cure this disease".
Open collaborations
All that remains is to turn to an ecologist: this specialist in mushroom communities, their evolution and their interaction with their environment. "Franck Richard brings a global understanding that makes it possible to identify the areas where we will have a chance of finding a particular species," says Sylvie Rapior. But also to shed light on the links between the concentration of active molecules and the natural environment, "two parameters that are intrinsically linked, because chemistry plays a key role in the insertion of a fungus into its ecological niche," explains Jean-Michel Bellanger.
While cooperation between these different specialists works perfectly, they themselves now aspire to turn to more open collaborations. Next up? Ethnomycology, where specialists in the human sciences will be able to propose new avenues of research. But also the development of increasingly active networks with amateur mycologists.
"The meeting between enlightened amateurs and competent laboratories is the guarantee of obtaining correct data. We want to benefit from the contributions of these excellent observers, but also to help them in concrete ways: for example by providing them with the power of molecular biology tools," concludes Franck Richard.
36th edition of the mushrooms and autumn plants fair
On 24 and 25 October at the Faculty of Pharmacy in Montpellier : a fair organised by the Horticultural and Natural History Society of the Hérault. On the agenda in particular: the main mushrooms used in food supplements: presentation, use and precautions for use.