ABSTRACT
Mushrooms have been used for centuries in Asian and other traditional cuisine and traditional medicines due to their culinary and medicinal properties, but their properties remained unknown to the wide scientic community for a long time. In the last few decades, a large amount of research has focused on the types, sources, biosynthesis, and medicinal properties and applications of many mushrooms, mainly members of the Basidiomycetes family. e most common active ingredients in these higher fungi are their extracellular,
8.1 Introduction 171 8.2 Types and Sources of Bioactive Mushroom Polysaccharides 173 8.3 Production of Bioactive Mushroom Polysaccharides 179 8.4 Medicinal Properties of Mushroom Polysaccharides 185
8.4.1 Immunostimulating and Antitumor Properties 186 8.4.2 Antioxidant Properties 188 8.4.3 Antimicrobial Properties 190 8.4.4 Hypolipidemic, Hypoglycemic, and Prebiotic Properties 191
8.5 Applications of Mushroom Bioactive Polysaccharides in Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals 193
8.6 Conclusions 195 References 196
intracellular, or cell wall polysaccharides, which exhibit immunostimulating, antitumor, antimicrobial, anti-inammatory, antioxidant, prebiotic, hypoglycemic, and hypocholesterolemic eects. In the last few years, some of these mushrooms or their biopolymers have been commercialized in pharmaceutical applications, but their application in food and nutraceuticals is still at an early stage. However, the fact that many of these mushrooms are edible (and thus nontoxic) as well as tasty makes them, or their polysaccharides, potentially ideal ingredients for the formulation of novel functional foods and nutraceuticals. However, their biological properties might be aected aer addition to food, due to food processing and/or interaction with food ingredients. is chapter describes the most important and studied types and sources of bioactive mushroom polysaccharides, the biosynthesis and bioprocess conditions used for the production/cultivation in solid or liquid media, the relation between molecular/structural characteristics and bioactivity, their medicinal properties, and their existing or potential applications in human nutrition.
