The CVP (Coriolus versicolor polysaccharide) is well known as anti-tumor drug in clinical applications.

INTRODUCTION
Coriolus versicolor, also known as Yun Zhi (YZ), belonging to the family Basidiomycotina, is a mushroom widely used in traditional Chinese herbal remedies. Its medical value correlate to C. versicolor extracts. Of the C. versicolor-derived therapeutics extracts, polysaccharopeptides are commercially the best established. The *Corresponding author. E-mail: xuanweizhou@sjtu.edu.cn. Tel: +86-21-62932002. Fax: +86-21- 65643552,
Abbreviations: YZ, Yun Zhi; CVP, Coriolus versicolor polysaccharides; PSK, polysaccharopeptide Krestin; PSP,
polysaccharopeptide; and MTT, 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazolyl)-2, 5- diphenyl- tetrazolium bromide. polysaccharopeptides were obtained from C. versicolor known as C. versicolor polysaccharides (CVP), is a complicated protein-bound polysaccharide extracted from its mycelium or fruiting body. The composition of the polysaccharopeptide appears to depend on the source of  the material and the method of recovery used, such as polysaccharopeptide Krestin (PSK) obtained from the extraction of C. versicolor (CM-101) strains in China and polysaccharopeptide (PSP) obtained from the extraction of C. versicolor (Cov-1) strains in Japan. Both products have similar physiological activities but are structurally different (Chu et al., 2002). The major bioactive CVP is a _-(1_3)-glucan branching at 4’ and 6’ positions. The CVP mainly consists of neutral polysaccharides of glucose units; the main chain of _-1-3 consisted of _-D-1, 4-
Glc and _-D-1, 3-Glc, and branch chains were situated, _-D-1, 3, 6-Glc and _-D-1, 4, 6-Glc (Zhang et al., 2001).
The substance contained a branched glucan core with (1_3)-_-, (1_4)-_- and/or (1_6)-_-linkages, has a molecular weight of about 100 KDa and is highly watersoluble
(Ng, 1998; Wang et al., 1996).
The CVP have many pharmacological activities, including immunopotentiation, immunosuppressive, improvement
of appetite and liver function, calming of the central nervous system and enhancement of pain threshold. Historically, the CVP have been considered as important remedies for maintaining health, enhancing overall immune status, and prevention and treatment of chronic diseases (Ng, 1998). Presently, CVP is considered as a potential candidate for drug development in treatment and prevention of human cancers because of its immunological properties as well as its ability to distinguish cancerous cells from normal cells. Based on a statistics and analysis of anti-tumor plant drugs in a
hospital of Guangdong province, the frequency of using CVP is the highest in various fungal polysaccharides during the years of 2000-2002 (Liu et al., 2005). In vitro studies reveal that PSP acts selectively on B-cell lymphoma cell line (Raji), human promyelocytic leukemia cell lines (HL-60, NB-4) (Lau et al., 2004; Hsieh et al., 2002), human breast cancer cell lines (T-47D, MCF-7, MDA-MB-231) (Aoyagi et al., 1997; Chow et al., 2003), prostate cancer cell lines (PC-3, DU-145) (Hsieh and Wu, 2001). Although the CVP suppress proliferation of many human cancer cell lines in vitro and in vivo, not all cancers seem to respond to C. versicolor polysaccharopeptides. Normal lymphocytes, human
normal liver cell line (WRL) and human breast cancer cell line (BT20) are not affected by PSP (Hsieh et al., 2002;
Lau et al., 2004; Ho et al., 2005). The anti-tumor activity of the extract from C. versicolor appears to depend on
the strains-derived (Yang et al., 2000), the habitat in which it grows (Monro, 2003), the source material (Matsunaga et al., 1996) and the method of recovery used (Chen et al., 2003). The CVP can be produced from C. versicolor mushrooms harvested in the wild or cultivated commercially or from mycelial growth of C. versicolor in submerged fermentation. The polysaccharopeptides isolated from different sources (mushroom, mycelium, and biomass-free broth) differ somewhat in structure, composition, and physiological activity. The present study aimed to examine the in vitro cytotoxic activities of a culture-grown of C. versicolor hotwater extract in eight cell lines and to verify if the crude CVP can be extracted from the fruit body. This study provides a method of extract prepared CVP from
cultivated fruit bodies, and farther revealed that the CVP significantly suppressed the proliferation of four human
breast cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner, and four human liver cancer cells in a selectively manner in
vitro.