Safety assessment of mushrooms in dietary supplements by combining analytical data with in silico toxicology evaluation

Abstract

Despite growing popularity in dietary supplements, many medicinal mushrooms have not been evaluated for their safe human consumption using modern techniques. The multifaceted approach described here relies on five key principles to evaluate the safety of non-culinary fungi for human use: (1) identification by sequencing the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region (commonly referred to as ITS barcoding), (2) screening an extract of each fungal raw material against a database of known fungal metabolites, (3) comparison of these extracts to those prepared from grocery store-bought culinary mushrooms using UHPLCPDA-ELS-HRMS, (4) review of the toxicological and chemical literature for each fungus, and (5) evaluation of data establishing presence in-market. This weight-of-evidence approach was used to evaluate seven fungal raw materials and determine safe human use for each. Such an approach may provide an effective alternative to conventional toxicological animal studies (or more efficiently identifies when studies are necessary) for the safety assessment of fungal dietary ingredients.

The Effect of Mushroom Extracts on Human Platelet and Blood Coagulation: In vitro Screening of Eight Edible Species

“…The intention of this research was to conduct an in vitro screening of the potential of mushrooms as functional foods for the prevention of CVD and/or cardiovascular events. For this reason, some of the most often cultivated mushroom species were employed since they are increasingly consumed in the human population in the form of various dishes and food supplements [45,46]. Moreover, the use of hot water extracts was selected since it more closely reflects the situation in which individuals consume mushrooms than extracts obtained with organic solvents.…”

Multi-Detector Characterization of Grape Seed Extract to Enable in silico Safety Assessment

“…In conclusion, an evaluation of a botanical for use in a dietary supplement should account for the chemical complexities inherent to natural products. In this analysis of grape seed extracts, the use of a universal detector, such as the CAD, provided unbiased quantitative information and the incorporation of GC-FID and GC-HRMS to the traditional UHPLC-MS analysis (VanderMolen et al, 2017 ) allowed for a comprehensive qualitative investigation of the sample. The summation of these techniques provided important information for the toxicological safety assessment that helped obviate the need for classical in vitro and in vivo safety studies (VanderMolen et al, 2017 ).…”

“…Similarly, GC-FID and GC-HRMS were used to quantify and identify the volatile constituents, respectively. Using this multi-detector approach, the individual constituents of the GSE were characterized with the very specific goal of using the data for an in silico safety assessment to help guide or obviate the need for classical in vitro and in vivo safety studies (Little et al, 2017 ; VanderMolen et al, 2017 ; Baker and Regg, 2018 ). It should be noted that for the purposes of an in silico safety assessment using the TTC approach, the absolute identification of a constituent is not necessarily required.…”

The Cardioprotective Properties of Agaricomycetes Mushrooms Growing in the Territory of Armenia: Review

“…[27][28][29][30] The pharmacological and nutritional properties of mushrooms allow considering them as functional food for the prevention and treatment of various diseases, including CVD. [31][32][33][34][35][36] Previous studies suggest that regular consumption of edible mushrooms may potentially reduce the risk of CVD. [37][38][39][40][41][42] The focus of the current review is to assess the resource value of edible and non-edible Agaricomycetes medicinal mushrooms (MM) with potential CPE growing in the territory of Armenia and evaluate the perspectives for their usage in biotechnology and biomedicine.…”