Ganoderma lucidum(Leyss Ex fr．)Karst．(Lingzhi)is a medicinal fungus with a long history in China as a valuable tonic remedy．Modern Pharmacological and clinical investigation demonstrated that Lingzhi had anti-tumor activities． Recently the antitumor effects of extract of Ganoderma lucidum(GLE)and Ganoderma polysaccharides B(GL-B)and its mechanism were investigated．The results demonstrated that GLE and GL-B significantly inhibited growth of implanted sarcoma 180 in vivo．GL-B also promoted anti-tumor activity induced by cyclophosphamide in mice in vivo GLE and GL-B directly adding to tumor cells-cultured medium neither suppressed sarcoma 180 and HL-60 proliferation nor induced apoptosis of both tumor cells in vitro． However the serum from GLE and GL-B treated mice can suppress S-180 and HL-60 cells proliferation and induced its apoptosis in vitro． Furthermore splenocytes conditioned medium with GL-B (GL-B-S-CM)and peritoneal macrophages conditional medium with GL-B (GL-B-PM-CM)also significantly inhibited HL-60 proliferation and induced its apoptosis in vitro．Further study indicated that GLE and GL-B could promote TNF a production from murine peritoneal macrophages and IFN g production from murine spleen cells in vitro．Finally GLE and GL-B could promote TNF a mRNA expression in murine peritoneal macrophages and IFN g mRNA expression in murine spleen cells．The results suggest that the anti-tumor effect of Ganoderma lucidum relates to activating macrophage and spleen cell，then promoting TNF a mRNA expression and IFN g mRNA expression，finally resulting TNF a and IFN g release．
