Selected fungi of the genus - screening of antioxidant capacity, antimicrobial activity, and genotoxicity.

It is well-known that mushrooms of the genus constitute a natural food resource providing health benefits as a nutritient. This genus contains 4 mushrooms identified as and which were collected in Serbia. The aim of this study aimed was to identify and characterize the content of phenolic compounds and examine the antioxidant potential of 5 wild edible mushrooms. contained the highest content of total phenol compounds (75.25 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE) per g dry extract weight (GAE/g DE) and exhibited the greatest antioxidant activity through the ability to remove radicals as evidenced by ABTS assay (8.99 mg of trolox equivalents (TE) per g dry extract weight (mg TE/g DE); total reducing power (TRP) assay mg ascorbic acid equivalents per mg of dry extract weight (0.42 mg AAE/g DE) and CUPRAC (14.23 mg TE /g DE). methanolic extract produced greatest scavenging of the DPPH radical (46%). The methanol mushroom extracts were screened for antimicrobial activity against a panel of pathogenic bacterial strains using the microdilution method. Of all the extracts tested, extract showed the best antibacterial properties. The cytokinesis block micronucleus assay results for the examined mushrooms demonstrated that extracts at a concentration of 3 μg/ml decreased the number of micronuclei (MN) in the range of 19-49% which is significant bearing in mind that radioprotectant amifostine reduced the frequency of MN by only 16.3%. Data thus demonstrate that the 5 wild edible mushrooms of genus contain constituents that are beneficial not only as nutrients but also have the potential as antioxidants, antibacterial and antigenotoxic properties.