Pharmaceutical and Nutraceutical Importance of Bioactive Metabolites from Macrofungi

Abstract

Mushrooms emerge as fascinating organisms within the vast expense of the natural world. They have been rapidly expanding in demand due to their popularity among consumers for their delightful taste, distinctive odor, and nutritional value. They are regarded as functional foods, that confer nutritional benefits and enhance health. Macrofungi exhibit a diverse array of bioactive compounds, categorized as secondary metabolites. Mushrooms are the richest source of proteins, polysaccharides, polysaccharide-protein complexes, phenolic compounds, sterols, triterpenes, triterpenoids, and vitamins. Mushroom extracts have great medicinal uses for human well-being as they possess numerous properties such as anticancer, antimicrobial, antidiabetic, antioxidant, antiobesity, antilipidemic, antiaging, immunomodulatory, hepatoprotective, and neuroprotective properties. This review highlights the nutraceutical and therapeutic potential of various macrofungi. Furthermore, it serves as a valuable resource for researchers, enabling them to access existing knowledge on the ethnopharmacological activities of bioactive compounds extracted from macrofungi and other useful compounds that could be the source for the discovering novel drugs with better pharmaceutical and therapeutic properties.