Abstract
Compared to plants, nowadays mushrooms attract more attention as functional foods, due to a number of advantages in manipulating them. This study aimed to screen the chemical composition (fatty acids and phenolics) and antioxidant potential (OH•, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH•) and ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP)) of two edible mushrooms, Coprinus comatus and Coprinellus truncorum, collected from nature and submerged cultivation. Partial least square regression analysis has pointed out the importance of some fatty acids-more precisely, unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) followed by fatty acids possessing both short (C6:0 and C8:0) and long (C23:0 and C24:0) saturated chains-and phenolic compounds (such as protocatechuic acid, daidzein, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, genistein and vanillic acid) for promising anti-OH•, FRAP and anti-DPPH• activities, respectively. However, other fatty acids (C16:0, C18:0 and C18:3n3) along with the flavonol isorhamnetin are actually suspected to negatively affect (by acting pro-oxidative) the aforementioned parameters, respectively. Taken together, design of new food supplements targeting oxidative stress might be predominantly based on the various UFAs combinations (C18:2n6, C20:1, C20:2, C20:4n6, C22:2, C22:1n9, etc.), particularly if OH• is suspected to play an important role.