Effects of Na2SeO3 on growth, metabolism, antioxidase and enzymes involved in polysaccharide synthesis of Cordyceps militaris

The main objective of our study was to illuminate effects of sodium selenite (Na2SeO3) on growth, metabolism and enzyme activities of Cordyceps militaris. By adding Na2SeO3 in fermentation medium (7 mg/L), it was found that mycelium of C. militaris was stronger with more plump spores and its biomass was higher accompanied by the maximum (13.19 g/L) at 6 d of culture. Besides, Na2SeO3 also caused the enhancement of total thiol (T-SH), non-protein thiol (NP-SH) contents and the biosynthesis of Se-polysaccharide (Se-CMP) with discriminatory molecular weight, optical rotation, UV–vis and FT-IR spectra. Activities of antioxidase including catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX) and enzymes involved in polysaccharide synthesis including phosphoglucomutase (PGM), phosphoglucose isomerase (PGI), UDPG-pyrophosphorylase (UGP) enhanced to different extent. Their corresponding genes were also up-regulated but cat gene (encoding CAT). Se-enrichment of C. militaris provided a good way for desirable biomass and polysaccharide biosynthesis in further research.