Mushroom Biomass Waste Is a Source of the Antioxidants Ergothioneine and Glutathione

Dhanya Sivakumar and Gale Bozzo ()
Additional contact information
Dhanya Sivakumar: Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Gale Bozzo: Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 15, 1-13

Abstract: Low-grade foodstuffs and unharvested materials from farms contribute a sizable amount of the waste that is disposed to landfills. Mushroom farms also contribute to this problem, as unmarketable fruiting bodies or parts of them are discarded in the waste stream. To limit the proportion of mushroom biomass waste that is deposited to landfills, we assessed whether culls of oyster and shiitake mushrooms and white button mushroom stem waste contain the antioxidants ergothioneine and glutathione. Enzyme-coupled spectrophotometric assays were used to assess the concentrations of glutathione (GSH) and its oxidized form glutathione disulfide in mushroom biomass waste. Ergothioneine analysis was performed with a high-performance liquid chromatography analysis. Most of the biomass waste contained ergothioneine and GSH concentrations that were on par with each one of the fresh mushrooms. Conversely, white button mushroom stem waste contained 77% less GSH than market-ready mushrooms. Finally, as a proof-of-concept cation exchange column chromatography was used to capture ergothioneine from oyster mushroom culls. This strategy has the potential to produce gram quantities of high value ergothioneine per tonne of mushroom biomass waste. These findings provide a strategy for the valorization of mushroom biomass waste and its diversion from landfills.

Keywords: antioxidant; biomass waste; ergothioneine; glutathione; glutathione disulfide; mushrooms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/15/11961/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/15/11961/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:15:p:11961-:d:1209987

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().