Background: Chitin and chitosan are natural biopolymers found in shell of crustaceans, exoskeletons of insects and mollusks, as well as in the cell walls of fungi. These biopolymers have versatile applications in various fields such as biomedical, food industry, and agriculture. These applications are back to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, strong antibacterial effect, and non-toxicity. Outcomes: The fungal biopolymers have many features that made them more advantageous than those biopolymers from seafood waste origin. Chitin and chitosan are not components of cell wall in all fungal species. The fungal classes of Basidiomycetes, Ascomycetes, Zygomycetes, and Deuteromycetes are known to contain chitin and chitosan in their cell walls. The amounts and characters of fungal biopolymers are affected by many factors so they should be optimized before increasing the scale of production. The statistical design of experiments is the most recent and advanced approach for optimization of various factors with more reliable results. Conclusion: Although extensively studied, further studies concerning fungal chitin and chitosan should be conducted in order to be sure of safety for human use.

Introduction ChitinChitin may be inferred from the Greek saying 'chiton', importance and cover of mail and might have been uniquely, initially utilized within 1811 by Bradconnot [1,2]. Poly β-(1→4)-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine or chitin (Figure 1) is the second plentiful bio-polysaccharide of ace significance to nature following cellulose.This biopolymer is synthesized by massive number of living organisms [3,4]. In the native nation, chitin occurs as ordered crystalline micro fibrils which form structural ingredients in the exoskeleton of arthropods or in the cell walls of yeast and fungi.So far, the major traditional sources of chitin are shrimp and crab shells. In industrial processing, chitin is extracted by acid treatment to dissolve the calcium carbonate followed by alkaline solution to dissolve proteins. In addition, a decolorization step is often added in order to eliminate pigments and obtain a colorless pure chitin.All those processing must be compatible to chitin source, due to variations in the ultrastructure of the original material, to produce high quality of chitin, and chitosan (partial deacetylation). Chitin is niggardly and infusible soluble through transformation into various conformations. The solubility is a main problem in the enhancement of both treatment and use of chitin add to its characterization. Chitin has extra applications while converting to chitosan [5][6][7] (Figure 1). Figure 1: Structure of Chitin. ChitosanChitosans are produced from the shells of crabs and shrimps, insects, and the bone plates of squids and microorganism. In fungal cell walls, chitosan exists in two forms, as free chitosan and covalently bounded to β-glucan. Minimum cost products of these two polymers could be produced utilizing industrial waste mycelia

BackgroundPolysaccharides (PSs) are a high molecular weight polymer, consisting of at least ten monosaccharides mutually joined by glyosidic linkages. The glycosyl moiety of hemiacetal or hemiketal, together with the OH group of another sugar unit, formed the glyosidic linkages [1]. Unlike protein and nucleic acid, the structure of PSs is far more complicated based on the differences in (i) composition of monosaccharide residues, (ii) glyosidic linkages, (iii) sequence of sugar units, (iv) degrees of polymerization, and (v) branching point. Apart from those, other factors, such as differences of cultivars, origins, and batches, or even extraction methods and fraction procedures are evidenced to have significant influence on the physicochemical and structural properties of PSs. Owing to the rapid development of modern analytical techniques; the identification of PSs structures is becoming more and more feasible and convenient [1]. In recent years, researches have confirmed that PSs from natural products possess wide-ranging beneficial therapeutic effects and health-promoting properties. Specifically, seaweed derived PSs, such as alginate, fucoidan, carrageenan, laminaran, and agar [2], are widely distributed in biomedical and biological applications [3-7], for example, tissue engineering, drug delivery, wound healing, and biosensor due to their biocompatibility and availability. Fungal PSs, derived from Grifola frondosa, Lentinula edodes, oyster mushroom, as well as Ganoderma, Flammulina, Cordyceps, Coriolus, and Pleurotus, and so forth, are demonstrated to have multiple bioactivities [8-11], including immunomodulating, anticancer, antimicrobial, hypocholesterolemic, and hypoglycemic effects. Bacterial extracellular PSs, loosely associated with bacterium, capsular PSs, tightly bound to bacteria surface, and lipopolysaccharides, always anchored to cell surface by lipid, are nontoxic natural biopolymers and provide extensive applications in areas such as pharmacology, nutraceutical, functional food, cosmeceutical, herbicides, and insecticides [12].If PSs contains only one kind of monosaccharide molecule, it is known as a homopolysaccharide, or homoglycan, whereas those containing more than one kind of monosaccharide are heteropolysaccharides. The most common constituent of PSs is glucose, but fructose, galactose, galactose, mannose, arabinose, and xylose are also frequent [13,14]. PSs are structurally diverse

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