Prospects and Challenges of Umami in Edible Fungi: Biological Sources, Structure-Function Relationship, Production, Mechanism, and Evaluation.

Umami is crucial for enhancing food palatability, modulating appetite, and preventing obesity. Edible fungi, as nutrient-rich and sustainable food sources, are particularly abundant in umami (enhanced) substances, including monosodium glutamate (MSG), umami amino acids, 5'-nucleotides, peptides, and their derivatives. This review systematically summarizes their molecular structures, sensory properties, and structure-function relationships, emphasizing how processing, storage, and intrinsic factors affect their stability, activity, and synergy. Strategies such as fermentation, hydrolysis, Maillard reaction, physical assistance, and bioengineering are discussed for targeted production. Particularly, multi-combination processing and genetic engineering offer great potential in tailoring high-potency umami compounds. Advances in purification methods enable the separation of active peptides with outstanding umami and high purity. Moreover, recent research on receptor-ligand binding, orthosteric recognition/allosteric modulation, signal transduction, and multisensory integration shed light on the mechanisms of umami recognition and enhancement. Emerging digital tools, including biosensors and computational modeling, support high-throughput screening and function prediction of umami compounds. Overall, this review provides comprehensive perspectives on the molecular basis, processing, optimization, mechanism, and evaluation of umami components in edible fungi, offering theoretical guidance for the development of novel health-oriented umami regulators.

© 2025 Institute of Food Technologists®.