Exploring Chemical Diversity Alongside Antioxidant, Antimicrobial, Antiproliferative, Anti-Inflammatory, and Caenorhabditis elegans Locomotor Responses in Whole, Caps and Stipes of Suillus luteus and Agaricus bisporus

Edible mushrooms contain chemically diverse metabolites that can be characterised for their biological response under experimental conditions. This study characterised whole mushrooms, including caps and stipes, from wild Suillus luteus and cultured Agaricus bisporus var. brunnescens, and evaluated their physicochemical composition, bioactive compounds, and antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiproliferative, anti-inflammatory, and locomotor activities in Caenorhabditis elegans. The extracts were evaluated using spectrophotometric, chromatographic, ABTS, and DPPH assays, as well as microdilution, MTT, nitrite production in RAW 264.7 macrophages, and locomotor parameters. Agaricus bisporus var. brunnescens contained 46.7 and 50.2 mg/100 g of vitamin C in the whole mushroom and the cap, respectively, and between 1685.9 and 2152.8 mg/100 g DW of total phenols. S. luteus contained 38,609.0–51,974.6 mg/100 g DW of total organic acids, primarily malic acid, and exhibited higher antioxidant capacity ranging from 3.2 to 3.3 mmol TE/100 g DW as measured by the DPPH assay and 4.9–5.9 as measured by the ABTS assay. A. bisporus showed growth-inhibitory activity against all eight bacterial strains tested and exhibited the lowest MIC against Staphylococcus aureus (3.9 mg/mL), whereas no inhibition was detected against the two Candida strains tested. S. luteus showed an IC50 of 0.08–0.21 mg/mL, although with limited tumour selectivity, and reduced LPS-induced nitrite levels by up to 64.6%. The locomotor changes observed in C. elegans were not statistically significant. These results are exploratory and serve as a starting point for future research.