Studies on the Emission of Volatile Organic Compounds from Selected Forest Mushrooms of the Genus <i>Lactarius</i> Using Proton-Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry

Forest mushrooms, due to their taste and smell, have been a component of people’s diets since the beginning of time. Unfortunately, there are many inedible or poisonous species of mushrooms that are similar to those that are eaten. For example, the highly valued Boletus edulis is similar to the ined...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tomasz Wróblewski, Anna Kamińska, Agnieszka Włodarkiewicz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-07-01
Series:Molecules
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/30/14/3000
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Forest mushrooms, due to their taste and smell, have been a component of people’s diets since the beginning of time. Unfortunately, there are many inedible or poisonous species of mushrooms that are similar to those that are eaten. For example, the highly valued Boletus edulis is similar to the inedible bitter bolete and the poisonous bolete. In the case of mushrooms of the genus <i>Lactarius</i>, such similarities are demonstrated by the delicious tasting <i>L. deliciosus</i>, the inedible downy <i>L. pubescens</i> and the poisonous cottony <i>L. torminosus</i>. This study presents an attempt to classify these three species based on studies of the emission of volatile organic compounds from the volatile headspace using proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS). The conducted statistical tests, principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant analysis revealed significant differences in the concentration of 20 selected protonated VOC molecules for the tested mushroom species. The clear advantages of the PTR-MS technique are that there is no need for special sample preparation and it has rapid measurement capability and high analytical sensitivity. This allows for a quick comparative analysis of VOCs, for example, from different species of forest mushrooms.
ISSN:1420-3049