ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIMICROBIAL PROPERTIES OF Laetiporus sulphurous (Bull.) Murrill

Laetiporus sulphureus (Bull.) Murrill is an edible wood-rotting Basidiomycete widely consumed as a nutritional food. These mushrooms were found to be medically active in some therapies, such as: antimicrobial, antitumor, antiviral, and immunomodulating treatments. In this work, antioxidant and antimicrobial potentials of L. sulphureus alcoholic extracts from dried fruiting bodies, dried mycelia broth and mycelia-free broth submerged cultures were investigated. For determination of potential antioxidant activity of thedried fruiting bodies and mycelia-free broth methanol extracts, the total phenols amount and scavenging capacity on 2.2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radicals have been analyzed. The results showed that the highest total phenols amount (283.9 mg GAE/100g) was found in fruiting bodies extract. Radical scavenging activity was found higher for fruiting bodies extract (EC50=35.45 mg/ml) followed by mycelia-free broth extract (EC50=46.67 mg/ml). The antimicrobial effects of the ethanol extracts were analyzed against Candida albicans ATCC10321, Candida parapsilopsis CBS604, Escherichia coli ATCC8739, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC6538, Enterococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus epidermidis ATCC12228. Two extracts presented a wide antimicrobial spectrum and were active against both yeast and bacteria tested: fruit bodies extract and dried biomass extract.