Abstract
The sun emits ultraviolet radiation in form of ultraviolet-A (UV-A), ultraviolet-B (UV-B), and ultraviolet-C (UV-C) bands. Ultraviolet light has the potential to boost vitamin D2 production in mushrooms which human bodies cannot synthesize. The ergosterol in mushrooms, a component of fungal cell membranes which serves the same function as cholesterol in animal cells, can be converted into vitamin D2 by exposure to controlled ultraviolet light. However mushrooms are conventionally grown in the dark, necessitating artificial ultraviolet irradiation. This study investigated the effects of UV-A (365nm) and UV-C (254nm) light exposure time during mushrooms growth, on the concentration of vitamin D2 in oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus species) after harvest. Mushrooms samples exposure times were varied from 10-60 minutes per day at intervals of 10 minutes, and irradiation done for three days. UV spectroscopy was used to determine the amounts of Vitamin D2. It was found that the absorbance of vitamin D2 for UV-A light ranged from 0.18-0.49 for the 10-60 minutes of irradiation respectively, while for UV-C light the vitamin D2 content absorbance was 0.38-0.81 for the 10-60 minutes of irradiation respectively. There was a linear relationship between time of irradiation and absorbance vitamin D2 content up to 50 minutes for UV-A and 40 minutes for UV-C.
Highlights
The sun emits ultraviolet radiation in the form of ultraviolet-A (UV-A; 315-400 nm), ultraviolet-B (UV-B; 280-315 nm), and ultraviolet-C (UV-C; 100-280 nm) bands [1]
The goal of this study was to irradiate growing mushrooms with UV-A:365nm and UV-C:254nm light, and vary exposure times in a situation that is achievable in a mushroom conventional growing environment, and infer the effects of these variations on the amount of vitamin D2 in the mushrooms inferred from the UV spectrometry
The exposure of UV-C light during growth for 60 minutes resulted in the highest absorbance of 0.81 compared to 0.49 for UV-A light exposure (Table 1)
Summary
The sun emits ultraviolet radiation in the form of ultraviolet-A (UV-A; 315-400 nm), ultraviolet-B (UV-B; 280-315 nm), and ultraviolet-C (UV-C; 100-280 nm) bands [1]. Human bodies through the skin are only able to synthesize vitamin D3 from 7-dehydrocholesterol following exposure to ultraviolet B (UV-B) but not Vitamin D2 [2]. Studies have shown that some wild mushrooms have naturally occurring levels of vitamin D2 in the range of 2.91-58.7 μg/100 g fresh weight [3]. It has been shown that vitamin D2 content of mushrooms can be enhanced through the by UV light irradiation [4]. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin required by the body which plays an important role in the regulation of calcium and phosphorus in the human body and in mineralization of bones [5]. Ingested vitamin D2 and endogenously produced D3 are converted to the biologically active form, 1, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1, 25(OH)2D) (calcitriol) in the human body [8]
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