Fatty Acids Composition of Pleurotus ostreatus enriched with Iron and Selenium

Abstract

Minerals such as iron and selenium play crucial roles in various physiological processes of plants and animals. Mineral supplementation therefore have significant effect on the proximate composition of plants and animals. This study was carried out to investigate the effects of iron and selenium fortification on fatty acids composition of Pleurotus ostreatus. Fatty acid composition of Pleurotus ostreatus fortified with iron (Fe) and Selenium (Se) was extracted by lipid extraction and methylation procedure using acidic methanol: normal saline: hexane solution followed by Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Selenium fortified P.ostreatus (26213mg/g) had highest lipids followed by iron fortified (14395 mg/g) P.ostreatus. The most prominent fatty acids in iron fortified P.ostreatus are lignoceric (20.57µg/ml), arachidonic acid (18.53µg/ml), butanoic acid (18.77μg/ml), eicosahexaenoic acid (16.67μg/ml) and nervonic acid (15.01μg/ml) while the most prominent fatty acids in selenium fortified P.ostreatus are arachidonic acid (88.39μg/ml), eicosapentaenoic acid (23.07μg/ml), erucic acid (17.58μg/ml), linolenic acid (16.03μg/ml), and caproic acid (15.44μg/ml). Selenium fortified P.ostreatus had the highest percentage of unsaturated fatty acids (74.31%) followed by iron fortified (58.22%) P.ostreatus. Selenium fortified P.ostreatus had highest percentage of Omega 6 (52.21%), polyunsaturated (38.13%), and monounsaturated (35.17%) fatty acids. There was increase in the percentage of monounsaturated fatty acids (37.04%), omega 3 (34.26%) and omega 6 (29.26%) in iron fortified P.ostreatus. Data gathered from this study revealed that mineral fortification markedly affected the quantity of fatty acid in Pleurotus ostreatus.