Both Isaria cicadae and Isaria tenuipes are important entomopathogenic fungi used in health foods and traditional herbal medicines in East Asia. However, the safety concerns for both fungal species have been attracting significant attention. Thus, surveying their secondary metabolites (SMs) will be beneficial to improving the safety of their fungal products. In the case of I. cicadae, its SMs mainly include nucleosides, amino acids, beauvericins, myriocin, and oosporein. In contrast, trichothecene derivatives, isariotins, cyclopenta benzopyrans and PKs, are found in the case of I. tenuipes. Among them, beauvericins, myriocin, oosporein and many trichothecene derivatives are toxic compounds. The toxicity and side effects of the fungal products may be related to these SMs. Thus, to ensure the safety of fungal products, the residues standards of SMs need to be reported. Furthermore, methods for the detection of their SMs and biological identification of their strains must be considered. This review gives new insight into the secondary metabolites of medical and edible fungi.
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