PROXIMATE COMPOSITION, ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITIES AND FATTY ACID PROFILING OF SELECTED MUSHROOMS COLLECTED FROM AZAD JAMMU AND KASHMIR.

Mushrooms can be used in diet as nutraceutical or functional food for promoting and maintaining health quality and health longevity. Mushrooms just like medicinal plants can be utilized in the form of powder or extract as curative agents of several diseases and in providing a healthy diet. In the current study, ten different mushroom species were collected from Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The selected mushrooms were assessed for their nutritional value, biological activities and fatty acid profiling. Before extraction, proximate analysis of all selected mushrooms was performed. Protein, fat, ash and total carbohydrate contents ranged from 10-30%, 0.43-8.08%, 1.1-9.14%, 12.47-92.52%, respectively. Then mushrooms were extracted with three different solvents n-hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol for the assessment of their antioxidant potential through different antioxidant assays like total phenolics, total flavonoid contents and DPPH inhibition assay. The order of antioxidant potential in different solvents is methanol > ethyl acetate > n-hexane. Quantification of fatty acids by GC/MS analysis revealed that stearic acid, palmitic acid, oleic acid, linolenic acid were present in significant quantity in different mushrooms and unsaturated fatty acids were found abundant over saturated fatty acids in all the selected mushrooms. So the presence of fatty acids in studied samples is one of the main biologically active ingredients from mushrooms. The study concluded that the selected mushrooms from different regions of Azad Jammu and Kashmir are of nutritional importance having significant antioxidant potential and contain several unsaturated fatty acids that contribute to the nutritional value of mushrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]