This study aimed to optimize the culture medium for mushroom mycelium to enhance mycelial growth and support the production of eco-friendly biomaterials such as myce- lium leather. Since the properties of mycelium-based materials vary depending on me-...
This study aimed to optimize the culture medium for mushroom mycelium to enhance mycelial growth and support the production of eco-friendly biomaterials such as myce- lium leather. Since the properties of mycelium-based materials vary depending on me- dium composition, the establishment of an appropriate culture medium is essential for improving both growth performance and material quality. Among the tested strains, Trametes orientalis was selected for optimization because it showed superior radial growth and mycelium leather-forming ability. Screening of medium components identi- fied agar, malt extract, and yeast extract as significant factors promoting mycelial growth, and these components were selected as the major variables for subsequent optimization. To optimize these components, FFD, BBD, GA-ANN, and RSM-ANN were compared. Except for FFD, the tested methods produced similar optimal conditions with small differences between predicted and observed growth rates, and BBD showed the highest predictive accuracy. Density analysis further showed that the optimized me- dia, except for FFD, produced higher mycelial density than the control medium, indicat- ing that medium optimization may influence not only growth but also the structural characteristics of the mycelial network. These results demonstrate that combining design of experiments with artificial neural networks is effective for optimizing mycelial cul- ture media and provides a useful basis for the development of biomaterials.