Abstract: The fatty acids palmitic acid, oleic acid, stearic acid and linoleic acid were separately added to the liquid culture medium for Phellinus igniarius to investigate their effects on the production of biomass, polysaccharides, triterpenoids and flavonoids during shake culture. The results indicated that the extent of stimulation or inhibition on the production of biomass, polysaccharides, triterpenoids and flavonoids were associated with the types and levels of added fatty acids. Oleic acid at the concentration of 2.0 g/L led to a significant increase in biomass to 1.24 g/L, which was 33.33% higher than that of the control. Stearic acid was of great advantage for extracellular polysaccharide (EPS) production, and increased the yield to 325.38 mg/L, which was 3.20 times higher than that of the control. As for intracellular polysaccharide (IPS) production, oleic acid and stearic acid were both good elicitors, and increased the yield to 645.79 mg/L and 655.12 mg/L, respectively, and a much better stimulation was observed from linoleic acid at a higher concentration of 2.0 g/L. In addition, oleic acid was beneficial to the production of either extracellular triterpenoids (EGT) at 1.5 g/L concentration or intracellular triterpenoids (IGT) at 2.0 g/L concentration, and increased their yields to 666.15 mg/L and 339.32 mg/L, respectively. However, linoleic acid showed positive effect only on the production of IGT. In contrast, no satisfied results were gotten for the production of flavonoids from P. igniarius in this study.

Key words: Phellinus igniarius, fatty acids, polysaccharide, triterpenoids, total flavonoids