Ergosterol and Amino Acids Contents of Culinary-Medicinal Shiitake from Various Culture Conditions

Abstract

Lentinus edodes (shiitake) is an edible mushroom cultivated and marketed due to its nutritional and medicinal values. L. edodes is appreciated for its unique fragrant taste and its high dietetic potential. Its bioactive molecules explain its interest as medicinal mushroom. This mushroom can be grown using various substrates and culture conditions. Thus, our work focused on the comparison of chemical constituents (i.e., amino acids and ergosterol) of L. edodes fruit bodies cultivated in organic or nonorganic growing conditions in the French region of Occitanie. Sequential extraction was performed on freeze-dried fungal materials. Quantitative evaluation of amino acids was done using high performance thin layer chromatography. Assay of ergosterol was carried out using high performance liquid chromatography. For both ergosterol and amino acids, differences were highlighted between extracts (depending on the nature of the solvents) and between growing conditions (organic versus nonorganic). Extracts from organically produced shiitake contained the highest content of ergosterol, isoleucine and alanine. In conclusion, this work demonstrated that culture conditions influence the chemical profile of L. edodes as far as ergosterol and amino acids are concerned, which could improve nutrition and human health.

Macrofungi as a Nutraceutical Source: Promising Bioactive Compounds and Market Value

“…In human nutrition, exposure to small amounts of ultraviolet light is required for the activation of vitamin D. Among the cultivated mushrooms, the Pleurotus species have been shown to have relatively higher concentrations of ergosterol, with better conversion to vitamin D2 [213,214]. Extracts from organically produced L. edodes also contain the high content of ergosterol [215]. Agarol is an ergosterol derived from Agaricus blazei which has anticancer properties, inhibiting the proliferation of A549, MKN45, HSC-3, and HSC-4 human carcinoma cell lines [216].…”

The contribution of fungi to the global economy

“…The reported bioactivities include antibacterial, antidiabetic, antifungal, antihypercholesterolemial, antioxidant, antiparasitic, antitumor, antiviral, cardiovascular, hepatoprotective, immunomodulatory and radical scavenging effects (Hyde et al 2019;Zeb and Lee 2021;Niego et al 2021). The bioactive principles causative for those effects are polysaccharides, proteins (El Enshasy and Hatti-Kaul 2013), glycoproteins (Cohen et al 2014), phenolic compounds (Gupta et al 2018;Hamwenye et al 2022), ergosterol (Diallo et al 2020) and other terpenoids, or unsaturated fatty acids (Galappaththi et al 2022). The health-promoting properties of many fungi are the driving force for increasing their market value and incorporation into the nutraceutical industry (Niego et al 2021).…”