Heavy metal content and human health risk assessment of typical wild edible mushrooms

Yuan Gaoa, X. Liua and L. Q. Maa, b

a Research Center for Soil Contamination and Remediation, Southwest Forestry University,China

b Soil and Water Science Department, University of Florida, USA

greta_17@163.com

Heavy metal pollution is one of the most serious problems in modern society. The pollution especially in soils seriously affect the ecosystem due to its low transference, permanent residence and invulnerable to microbial degradation in soils. For human, heavy metals are introduced to the body mostly by inhalation or resorption. Mushrooms are efficient heavy metal accumulators. Thus it is necessary to investigate their pollution level thus to accurately assess their risk for human health. The aims of the study were to: (1) investigate heavy metals (As, Pb, Cd and Hg) levels in soils and the growing wild edible mushrooms; (2) establish correlations between soil and mushroom heavy metal contents to estimate soil-to-plant bioavailability; and (3) evaluate the health risk of wild edible mushrooms of different ages basing on a probabilistic method. There are 63 mushroom samples from 11 species. The samples were washed with tap water and distilled water, using porcelain stainless steel scissors to separate it into caps and stipes and freezed dried at –65°C (Freez Zone 12, LABCONCO) until to get constant mass. After recording dry weights, the lyophilized samples were cut and ground with mortar and pestle under liquid N2 protection to obtain homogeneous materials and stored at −20°C for further analysis. Samples were pass through a 100-mesh sieve and heavy metals were analyzed with X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF). Standard soil (GBW07401), plant (GBW10048) and Hunan rice (GBW10045) reference materials were used for quality control. Mathematical methods and in vitro simulation experiments were conducted to evaluate the human health risk of typical mushrooms. Information obtained from this study helps to examine the plant bioavailability of soil heavy metals and develop strategies to reduce heavy metals plant uptake for improving food safety.

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