Comparison of the chelanting activity of dark pigments with melanin characteristics obteined from edible mushrooms.

Melanin is a biopolymer synthesized by most living beings, is product of the polymerization of available polyphenols oxidized by the action of enzymes with polyphenol oxidase activity, it has a very complex structure, this gives the molecule a series of biological characteristics and properties that could have health benefits such as metal chelating activity. that depending on the structure, it will have greater efficiency on some metals or not depending on the organism from which it was extracted, 3 of the most common mushrooms in the Mexican diet were compared, such as mushrooms, huitlacoche and Pleurotus ostreatus. For copper, it was the pigment obtained from Pleurotus that showed the highest activity, having 47.55µg/mL of trolox, while that from mushroom and huitlacoche obtained 24.58 and 5.55µg/mL of trolox, respectively, measured by the CUPRAC method. For iron, the one obtained from huitlacoche was the highest with 88.47%, while the one from mushroom and Pleurotus have less activity with 64.7% and 36.54% respectively measured by the method with ferrozine. In conclusion, the pigments have the exchange of electrons for the chelation reaction, due to their structure and also at higher concentrations, more chelating activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]