Cultivation of Medicinal Mushroom Biomass by Solid-State Bioprocessing in Bioreactors

Basidiomycetes of various species and their wide range of pharmaceutically interesting products in the last decades represent one of the most attractive groups of natural products in Asia and North America. Production of fungal fruit bodies using farming technology is hardly covering the market. Comprehensive solid-state technologies and bioreactors are the most promising part for fast and large amount of cultivation of medicinal fungi biomass and its pharmaceutically active products. Wood, agriculture, and food industry wastes represent the main substrates that are in this process delignified and enriched in proteins and highly valuable pharmaceutically active compounds. Research in physiology, basic and applied studies in fungal metabolism, process engineering aspects, and clinical studies in the last two decades represent large contribution to the development of these potentials that initiate the development of new drugs and some of the most attractive over-the-counter human and veterinary remedies. Present article is an overview of the achievements in solid-state technology of the most relevant medicinal mushroom species production in bioreactors. [GRAPHICS] .