Multielemental Inductively Coupled Plasma – Optical Emission Spectrometric (ICP-OES) Method for the Determination of Nutrient and Toxic Elements in Wild Mushrooms Coupled to Unsupervised and Supervised Chemometric Tools for Their Classification by Species

Abstract

An inductively coupled plasma – optical emission spectrometric (ICP-OES) method was employed to assess the elemental composition of the wild mushrooms belonging to the species of Craterellus cornucopioides, Boletus aereus, and Cantharellus cibarius. The ICP-OES method was validated in terms of linearity, accuracy, precision, limits of detection (LODs), and limits of quantification (LOQs). The relative recoveries of the proposed method were between 80.9% and 119.7%, while the relative standard deviation values were less than 8.8%. The limits of detection and quantification of the ICP-OES method were between 0.02 mg/kg (Mn) − 1.37 mg/kg (Αl), and between 0.08 mg/kg (Mn) − 4.57 mg/kg (Al), respectively. Al, B, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Ni, and Zn were determined, and the results were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). One-way ANOVA was used to identify statistically significant differences based on the metal content and the mushroom species. Finally, a partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) model was developed to classify the samples based on their elemental profile according to their species.

Keywords:

• elemental composition
• inductively coupled plasma – optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES)
• metals
• mushrooms

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Mr. Ilias Efthimiou, certified mushroom collector, who kindly collected and provided the samples used in this study.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.