Nutraceutical and Food Preserving Importance of Laetiporus sulphureus

Abstract

Laetiporus sulphureus (Bull.: Fr.) Murr. is popularly known as “sulphur polypore” or “chicken of the woods” due to its characteristic sulphur yellow coloured polypore’s and chicken-like taste and texture. This edible wild mushroom has been traditionally consumed as a source of nutrition and folk medicine in Asia and Europe for a long time. The numerous studies have shown that L. sulphureus nutritionally provides various key components such as carbohydrate, essential amino acids and fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and fibre. Besides, the extracts prepared from fruiting bodies or mycelia of this mushroom have exhibited a number of medicinal properties such as immunomodulation, antitumor, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and antihyperglysemic activities because of their biologically active components such as phenolics, triterpenes, and polysaccharides. L. sulphureus is also a suitable candidate to be used as a natural food preserving source.

The Possibility of Using Sulphur Shelf Fungus (Laetiporus sulphureus) in the Food Industry and in Medicine—A Review

“…Occurrence. Laetiporus sulphureus is very common: most reports come from North America and Europe [ 6 ], but it has also been found in South America, Africa, Asia (including China, Laos and Thailand) and Australia [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 7 , 8 ]. It occurs in parks, forests and woodlots up to 2000 m above sea level [ 5 , 7 ].…”

“…Due to the biology of the sulphur shelf fungus, and in particular the large variety of plant species on which it occurs, the chemical composition of this fungus is very rich ( Table 1 ), and at the same time, it may slightly differ. The caloric value of Laetiporus sulphureus fruiting bodies is in the range 321.7–375.6 kcal dw [ 1 , 8 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], and the water content is 66.7–91.5 g/100 g of the fruiting body (Saha et al [ 23 ] and Florczak et al [ 24 ], respectively). Among the basic components of the dry matter, carbohydrates dominate, which constitute 64.9–74.5% of dw.…”

“…Among the basic components of the dry matter, carbohydrates dominate, which constitute 64.9–74.5% of dw. The content of the other components is much lower: protein 8.6–21.0% dw; fat 2.3–5.9% dw; ash 4.0–9.0% dw; and fiber 4.1–15.2% of dry matter [ 1 , 8 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ] ( Figure 2 ). The largest fraction of neutral lipids were triglycerides [ 8 ].…”

“…Discrepancies in the content of individual components and fractions may result from the diversity of environmental conditions in which these fungi grew, and especially the species of the plant that hosts the fungus, as demonstrated by Kovacs and Vetter [ 1 ]. Bulam et al [ 8 ], based on the analysis of the research results of Agafanova et al [ 36 ], pointed out that slight differences in the composition of amino acids, especially essential amino acids, could also depend on the fungus strain (the size of the difference is usually below 0.5%). The greatest difference was found in the strains LS-BG-0804 and LS-UK-0704 for glutamic acid levels (0.9% and 0.4%, respectively) and tyrosine (0.3% and 0.8%, respectively).…”

“…Based on the analysis of the results obtained by Agafanova et al [ 36 ], Bulam et al [ 8 ] showed a high level of unsaturated fatty acids in relation to saturated fatty acids (UFA/SFA > 3.4). In the fruiting bodies of L. sulphureus studied by them, linoleic acid was the most abundant, and there were slightly smaller quantities of oleic and palmitic acids [ 36 ].…”