Can Cordyceps cicadae be used as an alternative to Cordyceps militaris and Cordyceps sinensis? - A review

Winston Nxumalo; Ahmed Abdelfattah Elateeq; Yanfang Sun

doi:10.1016/j.jep.2020.112879

Can Cordyceps cicadae be used as an alternative to Cordyceps militaris and Cordyceps sinensis? - A review

J Ethnopharmacol. 2020 Jul 15:257:112879. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2020.112879. Epub 2020 Apr 16.

Authors

Winston Nxumalo¹, Ahmed Abdelfattah Elateeq², Yanfang Sun³

Affiliations

¹ College of Life Sciences and Medicine, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, 310018, China; Department of Chemistry, University of Limpopo, Private Bag X1106, Sovenga, 0727, Polokwane, South Africa. Electronic address: Winston.nxumalo@ul.ac.za.
² College of Life Sciences and Medicine, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, 310018, China; Horticulture Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Nasr City, Cairo, 11651, Egypt.
³ College of Life Sciences and Medicine, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, 310018, China. Electronic address: katherineyfs@sina.com.

PMID: 32305637
DOI: 10.1016/j.jep.2020.112879

Abstract

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Cordyceps cicadae (Mig.) Massee is one of the oldest and well-known traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), with its uses recorded as far back as the 5th century A.D. For centuries, C. cicadae has been used as food, tonic and folk medicine to treat malaria, palpitations, cancer, fever, diabetes, eye diseases, dizziness, and chronic kidney diseases. Although C. cicadae has been used as TCM for over 1600 years, it is not the most popular amongst the Cordyceps family. Cordyceps Sinensis (C. sinensis) and Cordyceps militaris (C. militaris) are the most studied and widely used, with a number of commercially available products derived from these two Cordyceps species.

Aim of the review: This review seeks to look at the research that has been conducted on C. cicadae over the past 30 years, reporting on the biological activities, development and utilization. This information was compared to that focused on C. sinensis and C. militaris.

Materials and methods: A literature search was conducted on different scientific search engines including, but not limited to "Web of Science", "ScienceDirect" and "Google Scholar" to identify published data on C. cicadae, I. cicadae, P. cicadae, C. sinensis and C. militaris.

Results: Research conducted on C. cicadae over the past two decades have shown that it poses similar biological properties and chemical composition as C. sinensis and C. militaris. C. cicadae has been reported to grow in many geographic locations, as compared to C. sinensis, and can be artificially cultivated via different methods.

Conclusion: There exists sufficient evidence that C. cicadae has medicinal benefits and contain bioactive compounds similar to those found on C. sinensis and C. militaris. However, more research and standardization methods are still needed to directly compare C. cicadae with C. sinensis and C. militaris, in order to ascertain the suitability of C. cicadae as an alternative source of Cordyceps products.

Keywords: Cordyceps cicadae (Isaria cicadae); Cordyceps militaris; Cordyceps sinensis; Entomogenous fungi; Utilization.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Animals
Biological Products / adverse effects
Biological Products / isolation & purification
Biological Products / therapeutic use*
Cordyceps* / chemistry
Cordyceps* / classification
Humans
Medicine, Chinese Traditional*
Species Specificity

Substances

Biological Products

Supplementary concepts

Cordyceps cicadae