Mushroom is well known for a safe food for a long time and, what is more, has a lot of useful characteristics related on the pharmacological activities. It is expected to be one of the most important functional food due to its diverse bioactive compounds. Especially, medical potentiality on immunomodulator and antitumor continues to be focused. Recent research trend and commercialization of functional healthy food using mushroom and its bioactive compounds will be herein introduced. Industrialization of mushroom functional substances will be also discussed.

Background : Lycium ruthenicum Murr. was known as black wolfberry. It belongs to Solanaceae. In order to elucidate biological activities and functional substances of Lycium ruthenicum Murr., the methanol extract of Lycium ruthenicum Murr. harvested from Qaidam Besin. area was prepared and was studied. Methods and Results : Antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and antidiabetic activities of the methanol extract of Lycium ruthenicum Murr. were examined using diverse in vitro bioassays and functional substances were analyzed by HPLC and LC-MS/MS. The methanol extract of Lycium ruthenicum Murr. showed strong DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activities and also showed strong SOD-like activity. To examine the effects of the methanol extract of Lycium ruthenicum Murr. for the expression of antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT), RT-PCR was performed. SOD expression was strongly increased by the methanol extract of Lycium ruthenicum Murr. CAT expression was also increased with dose-dependent manner. The methanol extract of Lycium ruthenicum Murr. showed inhibitory effects against α-glucosidase and α-amylase, and also inhibited NO production. Anticancer effects of the methanol extract of Lycium ruthenicum Murr. assay were examined with five human cancer cell lines. The potent anticancer activity exhibited in HepG2 hepatoma cells. As a result of main component analysis by HPLC, chlorogenic acid and rutin were identified as the major flavonoids of Lycium ruthenicum Murr.. In addition, by LC-MS/MS, petunidine-3-O-rutinoside (trans-p-coumaroyl)-5-O-glucoside was determined as a major anthocyanin of Lycium ruthenicum Murr.. Conclusion : Lycium ruthenicum Murr. showed various biological activities and could be used as a food and a functional material to enhance human health. Further study to identify an unknown flavonoids of Lycium ruthenicum Murr. would be needed.

Phytochemicals have long been known to hold a number of physiological benefits, including antioxidant, anticardiovascular activities and anticancer. the profitable effects of phytochemicals from food sources such as vegetables and fruits, with respect to neurodegeneration, are only beginning to receive increased attention. Alzheimer’ s disease (AD) ís one of the major neurodegenerative diseases for which no treatment is available, and characterized by loss of cognition and memory. Many recent studies show that the brain of AD patient is subjected to increased oxidative stress resulting from free radical danlage, and the resulting cellular malfunctions are widely believed to be responsible for neuronal degeneration in AD. In this study, the relative relation between AD and phytochemicals were surveyed