Secondary metabolites and bioactivities from higher fungi in China.

Higher fungi (i.e. macrofungi) do not form a natural taxonomic or ecological group. They are defined as those fungi that produce large, easily observed and collected sporocarps. Most of the higher fungi species are from the phyla Basidiomycota and Ascomycota. These fungi are of particular interest because of their importance as food resource and culture component in many places of the world. Therefore, study of their diverse natural products has become a hot topic. China has the most diverse fungi in the world. We investigated the chemical constituents of Basidiomycetes and Ascomycetes from China, and our ongoing search bioactive metabolites from higher fungi could potentially be developed into new 'lead' compounds. We review the isolation, structural elucidation and biologically activity of the rich natural products newly derived from higher fungi collected in China after July 2007.