Journal of Horticultural Science
with the collaboration of Iranian Scientific Association for Landscape (ISAL)

Assessment of Nutrient Elements, Biochemical Compounds, and Antioxidant Activity of the Medicinal Mushroom Ganoderma lucidum

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

J. Zandavifard 1
M. Azizi 1
M. Darroudi 2
A. Hosseini 3

1 Department of Horticulture Science and Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

2 Department of Medical Biotechnology and Nanotechnology, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

3 - Pharmacological Research Center of Medicinal Plants, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/jhs.2022.77380.1181
Abstract
Introduction
Ganoderma lucidum is a mushroom of high medicinal value that has been widely used in the Far East countries especially in traditional Chinese medicine as promoting human health and treatment of many diseases. Nowadays, many published studies have established that it is a rich source of nutraceutical and pharmaceutical substances with potent and unique properties as immunomodulatory agents, hypercholesterolemic agents, or coadjutant treatments in diseases such as cancer, hypertension, insomnia, anorexia, dizziness, and chronic hepatitis, among others. This species is rich in several bioactive compounds (over 400 compounds) mainly, including polysaccharides, triterpenoids, steroids, fatty acids, amino acids, nucleotides, proteins, and alkaloids. Herein, the fruiting bodies of G. lucidum were studied in terms of nutritional value and chemical composition, and the antioxidant activity of extracts from the fruiting bodies was further assessed.

Materials and Methods
In order to detect nutrient elements, the samples were digested using a microwave digestion system (Milestone Ethos, Germany) with a maximum power of 1000 W and further characterized using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Biochemical molecule contents were characterized using Acquity Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatograph (UPLC, Waters) coupled to a photodiode array detector (PDA, Waters) and an electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometer (ESI–QTOF/MS; Waters). In order to assess antioxidant activity, two kinds of extract including 80% methanolic extract (ME) and hot water (HWE) were prepared by ultrasonic method. Six different in vitro assays were used to determine antioxidant capacity, including ABTS, DPPH, superoxide (SO), nitric oxide (NO) free radicals scavenging, iron-reducing power (FRAP), and iron chelating activity (ICA). The data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the means were separated by the Newman-Keuls Multiple Comparison test (GraphPad Prism 8, San Diego, CA, USA). All data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation. P ≤ 0.05 was considered to indicate a statistically significant difference. Furthermore, half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) values for each assay were calculated from linear or logarithmic regression using Excel software.

Results and Discussion
G. lucidum was characterized in terms of nutritional value and chemical composition. Generally, to study the nutraceutical value of G. lucidum, 14 elements were analyzed by ICP-OES. Among the macronutrients, phosphorus and potassium (2910.8 and 1510.8 mg.kg-1 dry matter, respectively) were the most abundant, followed by iron and zinc (8.5 and 7.74 mg.kg-1 dry matter, respectively) among the micronutrients. In terms of biochemical compounds, a total of 37 compounds were identified, among which ganoderic acid was the most abundant compound (15890.1 ± 232.1 μg per g dry matter) followed by sinapic acid and succinic acid (2011.4 ± 28.11 and 1505.33 ± 31.5 μg per g dry matter, respectively). The results of antioxidant assays clearly revealed that the methanolic extract generally showed higher antioxidant activity than the corresponding hot water extract. In the ABTS assay, ME showed higher activity (IC50, 48.46 ± 2.42 µg.ml-1) than HWE (163.51 ± 4.51 µg.ml-1) with a significant difference (P ≤ 0.05). For DPPH assay, radical scavenging capacity was dose-dependent and IC50 values of ME (111.93 ± 1.39 µg.ml-1) and HWE (213.48 ± 5.42 µg.ml-1) showed a significant difference (P ≤ 0.05). In the FRAP assay, ME showed stronger iron-reducing activity (IC50, 512.64 ± 4.06 µg.ml-1) than HWE (IC50, 898.51 ± 7.8 µg.ml-1) (P ≤ 0.01). In the ICA assay, ME also showed higher activity (IC50, 301.88 ± 7.01µg.ml-1) than HWE (IC50, 545.23 ± 1.21 µg.ml-1) (P ≤ 0.01). In the SO assay, ME (IC50, 488.8 ± 7.38 µg.ml-1) and HWE (IC50, 645.92 ± 5.48 µg.ml-1) showed a significant difference (P ≤ 0.01). In addition, in the NO assay, both extracts showed weak nitric oxide radical scavenging activity; however, ME showed the highest activity (IC50, 1189.5 ± 8.5 µg.ml-1) in comparison to HWE (IC50, 1343.2 ± 10.6 µg.ml-1) but the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.0901). The results clearly indicate that different extraction solvents used in this study significantly affected antioxidant capacities.

Conclusion
G. lucidum proved to be an important source of nutrients and antioxidant compounds such as terpenoids, especially triterpenoids, and polysaccharides. The free radical scavenging properties, reducing power and iron-chelating activity of G. lucidum may be mainly associated with phenolic compounds and triterpenoids. Therefore, based on the nutritional and biochemical profile of G. lucidum, and also its antioxidant power, this mushroom possesses high nutritional and antioxidant potential.

Keywords

Free radical scavenging
Ganoderic acid
Phenolic compounds
Reishi
Triterpenoids
Subjects

Authors retain the copyright. This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

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Journal of Horticultural Science
Volume 40, Issue 3
Summer 2026
Pages 381-367

  • Receive Date 26 June 2022
  • Revise Date 08 July 2022
  • Accept Date 23 July 2022
  • First Publish Date 23 July 2022

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