Mineral Contents of Two Wild Morels

Mineral (Ni, Cu, Co, Zn, Cr, Mn, Mg, Cd, Fe, Ca and Pb) contents of two wild edible morels, Morchella deliciosa Fr. and Morchella elata Fr., which are collected and consumed in Gaziantep province, were determined by an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS). Although both of the morelscontained considerable amounts of minerals, all the contents are in the range reported from Turkey.


Introduction
Fungi are an important group of organisms in nature and can be found almost everywhere in terrestrial ecosystems.Some of them with relatively large fruting bodies and varying degrees of edibility are known as mushrooms and have long been used as a source food for human in various cultures.Mushrooms are usually considered as valuable nutrient sources and many of them are also recommended against health problems such as headache, colds, asthma, diabetes etc. (Kalač et al., 1991).
Fruiting bodies of mushrooms are generally known to be rich in mineral contents (Vetter, 1990), because of the environmental factors such as amount of organic matter, pH and metal concentrations of underlying soil (Garcia et al., 1998).Due to such properties, mushrooms are thought to be used to evaluate the level of environmental pollution (Sesli and Tüzen, 1999).
Minerals such as iron, copper, zinc and manganese are essential metals and play important roles in living systems (Tüzen et al., 2007), but they may be hazardous on human if they are taken above threshold concentrations (Olumuyiwa et al., 2007).
Many studies have been carried out ot the metal contents of wild growing mushrooms in many countries.Kalač (2009) published a review about the contents of generally studies elements in fruit bodied of mushrooms.Similar studies were also carried out to determined the mineral contents of naturally growing mushrooms, collected from different regions of Turkey (Işıldak et al., 2004;Türkekul et al., 2004;Sesli et al., 2008;Gençcelep et al., 2009;Uzun et al., 2011;Kaya and Bağ, 2013;Tel et al., 2014;Kaya et al., 2017).This work aims to determine the mineral contents of the fruiting bodies of two wild morels, Morchella deliciosa Fr. and Morchella elata Fr.

Materials and Method
Dry fruit bodies of Morchella deliciosa and Morchella elata (Fig. 1) were obtained from the findings of TOVAG-212T112 which were carried out within the boundaries of Gaziantep province (Turkey).The habitats of the collected samples generally were pine forest, pine-oak mixed forest or pine-fir-cedar mixed forest.
Mushroom samples were prepared for element analysis by following the procedure followed by Khairiah et al. (2004) and Kaçar (1984).First of all the samples were washed with ultrapure water and dried at 80 °C for 8-10 hours.Then the samples were crushed and dried again at same temperature.One g of powdered mushroom samples were put in 50 ml beakers and 15 ml of HNO 3 were added.After waiting 8-10 hours, 4 ml HCIO 4 were added and heated gently for about 5-6 hours and cooled.Then 5 ml of H 2 O 2 was added and heated till the solution is colorless enough.The solution was cooled and distilled water was added on it until the total volume reaches to 10 ml.Element analysis of mushroom samples were performed by using flame atomic absorbtion spectrophotometer (FAAS).The absorption measurements of the elements were performed under the conditions recommended by the manufacturer and metal ion concentrations were determined as six replicates.

Discussions
Minerals play a vital role in the proper development and health of human body.However, high amounts of certain minerals are also toxic for most organisms (Savas et al., 1995).
In the presented study, although lead was not detected in Morchella elata, it was measured as 13.69 mg/kg in Morchella deliciosa.The reported Pb values for mushrooms were 0.5-20 mg/kg (Kalač et al., 2001).Common Pb content in many mushroom species from unpolluted sites is below 2 mg/kg, but levels up to 5 mg/kg have been reported for numerous species.Increased levels are common in mushrooms growing around highways.Extremely high Pb levels over 100 mg/kg were observed in the close vicinity of lead smelters (Kalač et al., 2004).
Cadmium levels in morels ranged from 1.575 (Morchella deliciosa) to 2.940 (Morchella elata) mg/kg.An extremely high content up to 300 mg/kg is reported in the literature (Seeger, 1982).Considerably increased Cd levels were reported in mushrooms growing in the vicinity of metal smelters (Kalač et al., 1996;Svoboda et al., 2000) and within a town (Kalač et al., 2003).It was reported that cadmium is accumulated mainly in kidneys, spleen and liver and its blood serum level increases considerably following mushroom consumption (Kalač et al., 2001).Thus, Cd seems to be the most deleterious among heavy metals in mushrooms (Kalač et al., 2004).
Copper were measured (in average) as 12.24 and 19.82 mg/kg in Morchella deliciosa and Morchella elata, respectively.Kalač and Svoboda (2000) reported that Cu levels in the accumulating species are usually 100-300 mg/kg, which is not considered a health risk.The Cu results of all mushroom species were in agreement with those found in the literature (Chen et al., 2009;Işıldak et al., 2004;Kalač et al., 1996;Svoboda et al., 2000).
Average cobalt contents for two morels were 2.250 and 3.810 mg/kg.The amount of Co was determined as 7.42 mg/kg for Agrocybe dura (Kaya et al., 2010) The essential element concentrations (Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, Ni) in the two morels were determined to be at suitable levels.Kalac et al. (1991) reported that heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and chromium can accumulate in the body and may be harmful for humans after chronic consumption.

Table 1 .
Measured and average concentrations of heavy metals in Morchella elata

Table 2 .
Measured and average concentrations of heavy metals in Morchella deliciosa Sesli et al. (2008)04)lues of magnesium were 60.96 and 62.21 mg/kg.The highest and lowest levels of Mg were found in Morchella deliciosa and Morchella elata.Demirbaş (2001a)reported the content of this mineral as 330 mg/kg in Tricholoma anatolicum and 6560 mg/kg in Morchella deliciosa.Turkekul et al. (2004),Sesli et al. (2008)also reported the Mg content within the range of 688 mg/kg and 1150 mg/kg.Compared to earlier published reports the determined levels of Mg is relatively low.Calcium content ranged from 1761 (Morchella deliciosa) to 2331 (Morchella deliciosa) mg/kg.Compared to reports of Kalač, (2009) (100-2400 mg/kg) and Sanmeea et al. (2003) (100-2400 mg/kg).The determined Ca contents are in agreement with the previous studies.Gençcelep et al.(2009)reported the Ca content to be 8800 mg/kg for Lepista nuda.Compared to earlier published reports the determined levels of Ca is relatively low.Unlike Ca levels in this study are in agreement with the higher value reported in the literature(Lee et al., 2009) (159.8-324.3mg/kg).