Immunomodulators form Medicinal Mushroom

Abstract

For more than two thousand years, mushrooms have been used for food, medicine or health promotion in many countries such as China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Nepal, India, Tibet, Siberia, Canada, Russia and Thailand. Recently, many immunomodulators have been extracted from diverse medicinal mushrooms, which are bioactive compounds used for immunotherapy. Medicinal mushroom immunomodulators are classified into four categories including lectins, terpenoids, proteins and polysaccharides. These bioactive compounds are produced by mushrooms cultivated in greenhouse conditions to reduce the utilization of natural resources. However, the yield is low compared to mushrooms in the wild. Extraction methods have been developed for the industrial production of the bioactive compounds but the cost is still high.