Medicinal Fungi and Natural Products: From Resources to Utilization

A special issue of Journal of Fungi (ISSN 2309-608X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2026) | Viewed by 1299

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China
Interests: nature product; drug discovery; medicinal plant; biomedicine

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Fungi represent an underexplored aspect of biodiversity, with merely ~150,000 species characterized out of an estimated 10 million. Beyond their critical ecological roles, fungi are a prolific source of bioactive compounds with significant therapeutic potential. Despite their historical use in traditional medicine and functional foods, the biosynthetic pathways, genetic regulation, and mechanistic underpinnings of fungal-derived metabolites remain largely elusive.

To advance fungal resource utilization and uncover novel bioactive molecules for human health and sustainable biotechnology, this Special Issue seeks contributions that address medicinal resource discovery, multi-omics approaches (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics), biosynthesis, and molecular biology to accelerate the exploration of fungal natural products and their molecular targets. We also encourage the submission of studies that integrate modern pharmacology with traditional knowledge, enabling various evidence-based applications—from drug development to nutraceuticals—and welcome original research, reviews, and analytical papers.

Prof. Dr. Xuebo Hu
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • medicinal fungi
  • natural products
  • bioactive compounds
  • fungal-derived
  • metabolites biosynthesis
  • drug development

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 3529 KB  
Article
Vegetable Oil as a Carbon Resource and Growth Elicitor for the Liquid Fermentation of Poria cocos
by Biaobiao Luo, Rudan Wei, Linghui Meng, Nokwanda P. Makunga and Xuebo Hu
J. Fungi 2025, 11(11), 815; https://doi.org/10.3390/jof11110815 - 17 Nov 2025
Viewed by 927
Abstract
Vegetable oil is a carbon-rich resource applied in liquid fermentation for compounds of interest. In this study, olive oil demonstrated the best effect on improving the liquid fermentation of a medicinal fungus Poria cocos (Schw.) Wolf compared to rapeseed, coix seed, palm, peanut, [...] Read more.
Vegetable oil is a carbon-rich resource applied in liquid fermentation for compounds of interest. In this study, olive oil demonstrated the best effect on improving the liquid fermentation of a medicinal fungus Poria cocos (Schw.) Wolf compared to rapeseed, coix seed, palm, peanut, and soybean oils. When 2% (v/v) olive oil was initially added to the medium, biomass reached a maximum value of 11.7 g L−1, presenting a 3.1-fold enhancement compared to the blank control. Due to the stronger basal metabolism, the total triterpenoid yields also exhibited a significant improvement of ~3.4-fold, reaching 0.68 g L−1. Spectrophotometry, along with fluorescence and chemiluminescence probe assays, demonstrated that olive oil affected the fungus membrane fluidity and level of reactive oxygen species and nitrogen oxide in mycelium cells. Transcriptome analysis confirmed that olive oil was used as a carbon resource and elicitor that affected mycelia growth, which simultaneously produced some slight effects on metabolic processes, including fatty acid degradation, TCA cycle, and glycolysis/gluconeogenesis. Our study represents an attractive strategy for the industrial fermentation of filamentous fungi. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medicinal Fungi and Natural Products: From Resources to Utilization)
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