Fungi aid immune system’s fight
Scientists have discovered that white button mushrooms, the plain Janes of edible fungi, are actually quite stimulating. Their powder seems to jump-start the immune response of cells taken from mice, a new study finds.
![White button mushrooms, the plain Janes of edible fungi, are actually quite stimulating: Their powder seems to jump-start the immune response of cells taken from mice, a new study finds.](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/7513.jpg?resize=150%2C126&ssl=1)
Researchers had already found that feeding mice white button–mushroom powder cranked up the activity of natural killer cells, an execution squad of the immune system. In the new study, a team led by nutritional immunologist Dayong Wu of Tufts University looked into the effect of white button–mushroom powder on dendritic cells derived from mouse bone marrow. Dendritic cells engulf suspicious foreign molecules and tidily repackage them for presentation to T cells so that T cells can later recognize the bad molecules themselves.