Introduction
For thousands of years, mushrooms have been valued as
edible and medicinal resources. A number of polysaccharides isolated from fungi, yeasts, and other microbial
strains have been studied and used for pharmaceutical
purposes such as dietary supplements and drugs (Zhang
et al. 2007; Chen and Seviour 2007; Danot et al. 2012).
Fruiting bodies are the main source of biological active
fungal compounds; however, it usually takes several
months to obtain them. Because of this, fungal submerged
cultivations carried out to obtain extracellular active
compounds have received great interest. This type of cultures may be affected by many parameters such as the
initial medium pH, growing temperature, medium composition which can regulate fungal morphology and structure,
the uptake of various nutrients, and the biosynthesis of the
active product.