3. In general, what are mushrooms?
• Long been used as a source of food
• Unique taste and flavor
• Traditional medicine in ancient times
• Eg. Japan and China
• In recent years, interest in mushroom as
dietary fiber or healthy food has increased.
4. Importance and facts
• Without fungi, we would not have bread,
beer, wine or antibiotics.
• But more importantly, we would not have
the nutrient recycling and plant nutrition
provided by fungi.
• Estimated 140,000 species of mushrooms.
• However, only 10% are known.
• About 2,000 species are safe and 700
provide pharmacological properties.
5. Applications of
• As mentioned previously, food source and
traditional medicine.
• One of the world’s greatest untapped
resources of nutrition and palatable food
for the future.
• Effective against cancer, stress, insomnia,
asthma, allergies, diabetes and
cholesterol reduction.
• Rich in protein, can be used to bridge the
protein malnutrition gap.
6. Source of medicinal compounds
• Mushroom protein contains all nine essential
amino acids required by humans.
• Source of nutrients and vitamins like ascorbic acid,
thiamine, riboflavin, iron, phosphorus, etc.
• Rich source of natural bioactive metabolites.
• These medicinal mushrooms are known to show
antiviral, antimicrobial, anti-parasitic, anti-
cancerous, anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular
activities. (Appendix shows anti-cancerous
compounds found in mushrooms)
7. Fungal Conservation
Problem:
• Biodiversity databases may prove to be revolutionary for poorly known
species group such as fungi.
• However, accurate recording of species occurrences is time consuming
and costly.
• In addition, the funding for surveying species is unfairly distributed.
• Targeted towards intelligent, attractive or spectacular organisms.
Steps Taken:
• In recent year, much emphasis is put onto DNA Metabarcoding in fungal
conservation.
• Fungal identification, the basic requisite in conservation is largely done
by molecular approaches.
• However, the high throughput sequencing methods are still in its
infancy.
8. Conclusion
• Medicinal mushrooms are a gift from nature that
contain biologically active metabolites that are
used as support remedies for cancer treatments
and other ailments.
• There is further need to develop technology for
the conservation of medicinal mushrooms.
