Mushroom polysaccharides are active medicinal compounds that possess immune-modulatory and anticancer properties. Currently, the mushroom polysaccharides krestin, lentinan, and polysaccharopeptides are used as anticancer drugs. They are an unexplored source of natural products with huge potential in both the medicinal and nutraceutical industries. The northern parts of Pakistan have a rich biodiversity of mushrooms that grow during different seasons of the year. Here we selected an edible Morchella esculenta (true morels) of the Ascomycota group for polysaccharide isolation and characterization. Polysaccharopeptides and polysaccharides from this mushroom were isolated using the green chemistry, hot water treatment method. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed the sugar nature and possible beta-glucan type structure of these polysaccharides. Antioxidant assays showed that the deproteinized polysaccharides have moderate free radical scavenging activity. These isolated polysaccharides exhibited good acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyryl cholinesterase (BChE) inhibition activities. Therefore, these polysaccharides may be valuable for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Further bioassays are needed to discover the true potential of M. esculenta polysaccharides for medicinal purposes.

Food pathogens represent an important health threat, and it is relevant to study the effect of foodstuffs such as spices which can inhibit bacterial growth. This study reports the antimicrobial, antibiofilm, and enzyme (Acetylcholinesterase, Butyrylcholinesterase, urease, tyrosinase) inhibitory activities of two medicinal food spices belonging to the Annonaceae family, Monodora myristica and Xylopia aethiopica. GC-MS (gas chromatography mass spectrometry) analysis of silylated samples of Methanol-Dicloromethane (50:50) extracts of both plants led to the identification of nine compounds in M. myristica and seven compounds in X. aethiopica. M. myristica and X. aethiopica had the same minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 0.625 mg/mL and 2.5 mg/mL on C. albicans and E. coli, respectively. However, M. myristica had better activity than X. aethiopica on Staphylococcus aureus, while Pseudomonas aeruginosa was more susceptible to X. aethiopica than M. myristica. The lowest MIC value was 0.1325 mg/mL, exhibited by M. myristica on S. aureus. Both extracts showed good antibiofilm activity. On S. aureus, at the same concentration, M. myristica had better antibiofilm activity than X. aethiopica. On E. coli and Candida albicans, X. aethiopica had better antibiofilm activity than M. myristica at the same concentration. X. aethiopica showed better violacein inhibition in Chromobacterium violaceum CV12472, as its percentage inhibition of violacein varied from 80.5% ± 3.0% at MIC to 5.6 ± 0.2 at MIC/8, as compared to M. myristica with 75.1% ± 2.5% at MIC and 15.5% ± 1.1% at MIC/8. The anti-motility activity by swimming and swarming inhibition on P. aeruginosa PA01 was low at test concentrations and in both models, M. myristica showed higher motility inhibition than X. aethiopica. Although in enzyme inhibitory assays all extracts had low inhibitions compared to standards tested at the same concentrations, the results show that these plants can be used to manage food-borne infections.

Recently, mushroom species have been the focus of researchers' interest because of several bioactivities. The aim of this study was to investigate the chemical profile and biological activities of various extracts of two Stereum species (S. rugosum and S. sanguinolentum). Antioxidant activity was tested using β-carotene-linoleic acid, DPPH scavenging, ABTS^·+ scavenging, cupric-reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC), and metal chelating assays. The extracts were also tested for their enzyme inhibitory activities against acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE). HPLC-DAD was applied for the analysis of phenolic compounds, and fatty acid compositions were determined using GC and GC-MS. When fumaric acid and catechin hydrate were found as the most abundant phenolic compounds in both Stereum species, oleic acid and palmitic acid were identified as major fatty acids. Both of the studied Stereum methanol extracts were determined as the most active in β-carotene-linoleic acid, DPPR, ABTS^·+, and CUPRAC assays; the n-hexane extracts were found to be most active in metal chelating and AChE inhibitory activity assays. In addition, the methanol extract of S. sanguinolentum (IC₅₀: 34.26 ± 0.31 μg/mL) showed higher ABTS^·+ scavenging activity than α-tocopherol (IC₅₀: 38.51 ± 0.54 μg/mL). The acetone extracts were found as potent inhibitors against BChE. These results suggest that Stereum species could be an antioxidant source and cholinesterase agent in pharmaceutic, food, and cosmetics industries.