Antioxidative potential of daedaleopsis tricolor basidiocarps and mycelium

Although some members of the genus Daedaleopsis have been prized for their medicinal and spiritual powers since Neolithic times, modern science has not yet sufficiently dealt with their bioactivities. This study aims at defining the antioxidative activities of extracts of Daedaleopsis tricolor wild and cultivated basidiocarps and mycelium and assessing their dependance on substrate type. Ethanol extracts (at a concentrations from 0.25 mg/mL to 16.00 mg/mL) of mycelium and wild fruiting bodies showed a considerable antioxidative potential (88.65% and 81.57%, respectively), which was almost the same as the commercial antioxidant BHA (88.91%). These radical scavenging abilities were reflected in EC50 values, which were 12.45 mg/mL for the extract of cultivated basidiocarps, 8.29 mg/ mL for the extract of wild basidiocarps, 7.93 mg/mL for mycelium one, and 0.10 mg/mL for commercial antioxidant. Despite the fact that phenol proportion in the extracts was no negligible (between 20.41 μg GAE/mg of the extract of dry wild basidiocarps and 146.37 μg GAE/mg of the extract of dry cultivated basidiocarps), its correlation with antioxidative activity was moderate. Flavonoids, in significant concentration, were detected only in the extract of cultivated fruiting bodies (28.64 μg QE/mg of dry extract), but no correlation with radical scavenging capacity was noted. A remarkable antioxidant potential, especially of the submerged cultivated mycelium, put D. tricolor high on the list of promising new natural antioxidants.