Recent advances in hepatoprotective polysaccharides from medicinal fungi: A decade-long review

The imbalance between the increasing global prevalence of liver disease and the limited availability of effective drugs highlights the need to develop novel hepatoprotective ingredients. Medicinal fungal polysaccharides (MFPs) have shown promise as hepatoprotective agents owing to their diverse liver-beneficial activities. This review summarizes decade-long advancements in hepatoprotective MFPs studies, including their sources, preparation technologies, chemical structures, hepatoprotective properties and mechanisms, as well as the existing research challenges. A total of 61 hepatoprotective MFPs from 18 species of medicinal fungi have been identified in the past decade. Various advanced techniques for MFPs preparation and characterization are well-established at the laboratory scale. MFPs exhibit hepatoprotective potential through diverse mechanisms in various liver disorders. MFPs offer a promising avenue for the development of scarce hepatoprotective agents, but there are still many challenges to translate the laboratory studies of MFPs into practical applications, including the lack of efficient standard preparation methods for large-scale industrial, lagging standardization and quality control of MFPs, unelucidated systemic biological effects of hepatoprotective MFPs and insufficient market acceptance and awareness of MFPs. Addressing these challenges is expected to facilitate the transition of MFPs from experimental innovation to clinical or commercial application, ultimately benefiting patients with liver disease worldwide.