# Studies on the Emission of Volatile Organic Compounds from Selected Forest Mushrooms of the Genus Lactarius Using Proton-Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry

## TL;DR

This study uses a fast and sensitive technique to identify differences in chemical emissions from three similar forest mushrooms, helping distinguish edible from poisonous species.

## Contribution

The study introduces a rapid PTR-MS method for classifying Lactarius mushrooms based on their volatile organic compound emissions.

## Key findings

- PCA and discriminant analysis showed significant differences in 20 VOC concentrations among three Lactarius species.
- PTR-MS enabled quick and accurate differentiation of edible, inedible, and poisonous mushrooms without special sample preparation.
- The method's high sensitivity and speed make it suitable for comparative VOC analysis in mushroom identification.

## Abstract

Forest mushrooms, due to their taste and smell, have been a component of people’s diets since the beginning of time. Unfortunately, there are many inedible or poisonous species of mushrooms that are similar to those that are eaten. For example, the highly valued Boletus edulis is similar to the inedible bitter bolete and the poisonous bolete. In the case of mushrooms of the genus Lactarius, such similarities are demonstrated by the delicious tasting L. deliciosus, the inedible downy L. pubescens and the poisonous cottony L. torminosus. This study presents an attempt to classify these three species based on studies of the emission of volatile organic compounds from the volatile headspace using proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS). The conducted statistical tests, principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant analysis revealed significant differences in the concentration of 20 selected protonated VOC molecules for the tested mushroom species. The clear advantages of the PTR-MS technique are that there is no need for special sample preparation and it has rapid measurement capability and high analytical sensitivity. This allows for a quick comparative analysis of VOCs, for example, from different species of forest mushrooms.