Mushrooms: An important source of natural bioactive compounds

Mushrooms are known for their various attributes in the fields of nutrition and therapeutics. With exceptional taste, aroma, and nutritional value, they are considered ‘functional food’-improving health and providing nutritional benefits to the body. Mushrooms have also been widely applied therapeutically as they possess diverse bioactive compounds known as secondary metabolites. These secondary metabolites demonstrated diverse biological properties such as anticancer, anti-diabetic, immunomodulatory, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, anti-allergic, and antioxidative activities. This review presents bioactive compounds from the field of mushroom metabolite research and discusses important findings regarding bioactive compounds identified during the last five years (2015 – 2019).