Antioxidant property of fruiting bodies of Ganoderma lucidum

Abstract

Ganoderma lucidum is one of the mushroom fungi, its fruiting body showed nutritious as well as medicinal value. Oxidants are generated during metabolism, which leads to multiple metabolic disorders. Medicinal mushroom contains a specific chemical which maintains equilibrium between oxidants or free radicals and antioxidants. In this study five different methods were adopted to assess antioxidant power of the Ganoderma lucidum aqueous and ethanol extracts. Results revealed that best antioxidant efficiency was noted with DPPH method with 319.0 µg/ml IC50 for ethanol extract and 347.3 µg/ml IC50 for aqueous extract. All the methods proved the efficiency of Ganoderma lucidum extracts as an antioxidant. Superoxides, nitric oxides could be responsible for defense mechanism of any tissue, which is responsible for survival of any organisms. Ganoderma lucidum could be a therapeutic agent responsible in preventing metabolic disorders. Chemicals of this fungi could be responsible for these biological activities.