Characterization of Trametes versicolor: Medicinal Mushroom with Important Health Benefits

Abstract

Trametes species represents a rich source of nutritive compounds with important pharmacological properties like antioxidant, antiinflammatory and anti-cancer properties. However, factors like genetic background, harvesting period, geographic location, climatic conditions and others are influencing the biosynthesis of bioactive compounds, their fingerprint and their concentration. The aim of this study was to determine the antioxidant capacity, total phenolic compounds and total flavonoids content of two mushroom species, namely Tramestes versicolor (TV) and Trametes gibbosa (TG), mushrooms with potential health benefits, harvested from north-west part of Romania. In order to determine the phenolic compounds profile, water, methanol, and acetone mushroom extracts were analyzed using UV-Vis spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy and LC-MS analysis. In total 28 compounds were tentatively identified as phenolic acids (11 compounds), flavonols (6 compounds), flavones (6 compounds), coumarins (2 compounds), flavanols, isoflavonoids and biflavonoids (1 compound). The highest antioxidant activity was determined for the methanolic extract while the highest total polyphenols content and total flavonoids content were determined for the water extract. The results obtained suggested that Trametes species can be considered important sources of bioactive compounds, their phenolics composition and content being influenced by a series of factors like geographic area origin and genetic background.