Metallic Elements in the Fruiting Bodies of Fly Agaric Amanita Muscaria (l

The concentrations of some trace elements (such as Fe, Ag, Zn, Mn, Cu, Cd, Mg, Ca, Na, K) were determined in the fruiting bodies of Fly Agaric Amanita muscaria (L.: Fr.) Pers. The mushrooms were collected in Poland in 1999 and 2000. The samples of dried and pulverized mushrooms (separately the caps and the stalks) were wet digested with concentrated nitric acid in PTFE vessels under pressure in an microwave oven. The elements were quantified using atomic emission spectroscopy with induced coupled plasma (ICP-AES). There were some variations of trace elements content depending on the site of collection. This fact can be explained by different biota conditions and different composition of soil in various regions of Poland. The sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium are typical essential elements for different biota and these metals were usually found in higher concentrations than silver and cadmium. Almost for all quantified elements the concentrations were greater in caps then in stalks. The concentrations of cadmium, copper, zinc, magnesium, calcium and potassium in fly agaric Amanita muscaria (L.: Fr.) were more or less the same in all investigated sites in Poland. Introduction The presence of high amounts of some elements, especially high toxic such as mercury, lead and cadmium can be treated as a potential danger for human health and for environment. These elements get to the environment from various sources i.e.: from industry, agriculture, transport and communication. Many of them have ability to accumulate in different parts of natural environment and in trofic chains. Organisms take these metals in various ways i.e.: from air, from food and water and in the case of plants from soil. Often the presence of these elements is necessary for proper functioning of plant or animal organism. But in some cases (selenium) there are small differences between toxic and necessary level of some elements. That’s why it is very important to control the amount of heavy metals delivered to environment from anthropogenic sources. Mushrooms are very good organisms for studies about occurrence of heavy metals in environment because they have capacity for accumulation of some elements. Additionally mushrooms are present almost in all kinds of the ecosystems. The contamination of mushrooms with heavy metals depends on many factors including species of mushrooms and level of soil contamination where the mushroom grows. It is known that some species of mushrooms even when grown at the regions considered as unpolluted can contain in their flesh some metals in a large concentrations (1,2). These organisms can also be useful as an indicator of environmental pollution in future research. Materials and methods The samples of mushrooms from Amanita muscaria genus were collected at various sites in Poland such as: Lubelska Upland, Tucholskie Forest, Nadwarciańskie Forest, community of Morąg, area of cities: Starachowice, Bydgoszcz and Włocławek. All samples were collected in years 2000-2002. There were about sixteen subsamples for each sample. The fresh fruiting bodies, separately caps and stalks, after clean–up from any foreign plant material and soil with plastic knife were dried for several days in the air and then further dried in an oven at 30o and powdered in an agate mortar. Around of 0.5 g of dried material was wet digested with 6 ml of concentrated HNO3 under pressure in PTFE vessels in a microwave oven (Mars 5, CEM). The concentrations of elements (Fe, Ag, Zn, Mn, Cu, Cd, Mg, Ca, Na, K) were measured by atomic emission spectrometry with inductively coupled plasma (ICP-AES, Optima 2000, Perkin-Elmer). The method was validated using CTA-OTL-1 certified reference material. Results and discussion The concentrations of ten elements: Ag, Zn, Mn, Cu, Cd, Fe, Mg, Ca, Na, K were determined in mushroom Amanita muscaria collected from various sites in Poland. The results are in tables 1 to 4. Almost for all quantified elements the concentrations were greater in caps then in stalks (except sodium and manganese). The highest concentrations were measured for elements such potassium, calcium, magnesium. These are typical essential elements for different groups of organism. The smallest values were obtained for elements with some toxic abilities such silver and cadmium. There were some variations of trace elements content depending on the site of collection. Area of Włocławek is the site with lowest concentrations of such elements as: Ag, Cd, Cu, Fe, Ca. In the case of sodium this area have highest values both for caps and stalks (160±91 μg/g dry matter in caps and 530±270 μg/g dry matter in stalks). The highest amounts of zinc were measured for area of Starachowice (220 μg/g dry matter in caps). In the case of manganese the highest concentrations were obtained for samples from Lubelska Upland and community of Morąg (42±16 μg/g dry matter in caps in Morąg and 64±45 μg/g dry matter in stalks in Lubelska Upland). For all remaining sites the concentrations of manganese were more or less the same. In samples from Community of Morąg the highest amounts of calcium were detected (290±160 μg/g dry matter) . Concentrations of such elements as: silver, cadmium, iron, magnesium, potassium, copper and sodium were on similar levels in all sampling sites except area of Włocławek. This fact can be explained by different biota conditions and different composition of soil in various regions of Poland. The concentrations of cadmium in mushroom Amanita muscaria collected in Norway, Finland and Czech Republic are similar to those reported in this article (3,4,5). Also in the case of manganese, copper and potassium there are no significant differences between values reported in this study and values obtained in other European countries(3,5,6). In the case of iron the results from Germany and Turkey are higher than obtained in this studies (6, 7). There are considerable differences between concentrations reported for zinc and manganese in Turkey (7) and in this article. Table 1. Total concentrations of some elements (Ag, Zn, Mn, Cu, Cd) in the caps of fly agaric Amanita muscaria (L.:) Fr. Pers. (mean±standard deviation and range in μg/g dry weight). Site of sampling Ag Zn Mn Cu Cd Lubelska Upland 0.80±0.35 0.54-1.50 140±41 110-230 42±16 25-71 30±7 24-46 18±8 7.8-30 Tucholskie Forest 0.75±0.11 0.61-0.92 130±55 1.1-220 17±13 0.039-42 42±19 0.12-90 15±10 3.6-34 Nadwarcianskie Forest 0.81±0.08 0.70-088 150±57