Comprehensive Evaluation of the Antioxidant Activity of Six Wild Edible Mushroom Species

The present study describes antioxidant properties of six wild mushrooms (Boletus edulis Bull., Boletus regius Krombh., Leccinum pseudoscaber Kallenb., Boletus impolitus Fr., Lactarius volemus Fr., and Lactarius deliciosus (L.) Gray) collected in Serbia. The antioxidant properties were assessed through the evaluation of the reducing power and radical scavenging ability of the samples. The Boletus regius sample revealed the best results in almost all antioxidant activity assays, with the highest reducing power and the highest scavenging activity, 33.0±0.1 mg TE/g dw in DPPH; 1.35±0.02 mg AAE/g dw in TRP; 13.42±0.08 mg Fe/g dw in FRAP; 37.5±0.2 mg TE/g dw in CUPRAC; 243.6±5.1 mg GAE/g dw in TPC. On the contrary, Lactarius volemus showed the lowest antioxidant activity. The results indicate that the analyzed wild mushroom species possess reductive capabilities, and they could be a potential source of antioxidants. The study was raised to the next level using a chemometric analysis, a principal component analysis to display the correlation between the antioxidant activity and different mushroom species.