Investigation of ice-assisted sonication on the microstructure and chemical quality of Ganoderma lucidum spores

Ganoderma lucidum spores (GLS) are well known for disease treatment and vitality enhancement, and have been shown to contain a variety of bioactive components, such as polysaccharides and triterpenes. However, the resilient bilayer sporoderm structure of GLS restricts the release of bioactive components and limits its complete pharmacological effects. The current study was aimed to improve the quality of GLS by means of a customized sonication technique, particularly, the effect of sonication processing parameters on GLS-breaking efficiencies was investigated. Significant morphological changes, such as cracked, fractured, and disintegrated GLS were observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) after sonication treatment. The performance for breaking GLS sporoderm was obtained at ultrasonic power density of 23.7 W/cm(2) , duty cycle 100%, and 90-min processing time. Through the combination of sonication in an ice bath, sporoderm breaking efficiency can be further increased from 45% to almost 75%. FTIR analysis revealed an increase in bioactive components of polysaccharide, protein, and fatty acid from the sonication processed GLS when compared to ground spores available commercially. The current results indicated that the ice bath combined sonication method is more effective in delivering GLS ingredients and could be an economic technique for the production of high-quality broken sporoderm GLS.