**4. Therapeutic potential of mushrooms**

The major importance of mushrooms is attributed to their medicinal potential that has generated a lot of research interest on a global scale. The great pharmacological and physiological properties of mushrooms are linked to the immune enhancement, maintenance of homeostasis and regulation of biorhythm, management, and prevention of various diseases, quality of life improvement from life-threatening diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases [19, 27, 82]. Many activities of mushrooms have been reported, such as hypotensive and renal effects [ref], immunomodulatory and antitumor properties of polysaccharide-protein complex (PSPC) from mycelial cultures [9, 14] immunomodulatory and antitumor activities of lectins from edible mushrooms. Due to the great potential benefits of mushrooms to humans, many scientific publications are available to the extent that a database of scientific evidence is available about the specific health effects of mushrooms and their bioactive molecules. These potential benefits include the following:

### **4.1 Pharmacological properties of mushrooms**
