Advances in the pharmacological research of Ganoderma lucidum: from traditional Chinese medicine to modern clinical applications

Abstract

Ganoderma lucidum , a classical top-grade herbal medicine with over 2000 years of application history, is officially listed as a food-medicine homologous material. Its core bioactive substances include polysaccharides and triterpenoids (including ganoderic acids), alongside sterols, nucleosides and amino acids, which endow multi-target pharmacological properties. This review systematically summarizes extraction, structural characteristics and quality control bottlenecks of its key components, and elaborates comprehensive preclinical pharmacological effects covering immunoregulation, neuroprotection, cardiovascular and renal protection, gastrointestinal homeostasis, anti-tumor, anti-aging, radioprotection and antiviral activities, with underlying signaling pathways such as NF-κ B, MAPK, Nrf2 and TGF-β/Smad clarified. Current clinical trials suggest its auxiliary therapeutic value in tumors, metabolic syndromes and urinary tract disorders, yet high-quality multi-center clinical evidence remains insufficient. Critical challenges include unclear structure-activity relationships, low bioavailability of lipophilic triterpenoids, severe raw material batch variation and incomplete component synergism mechanisms. Future research directions involve precise component characterization, multi-omic mechanistic dissection, novel delivery system development and standardized large-scale clinical verification to facilitate translational application of G. lucidum in modern biomedicine.