Lipid Components of a Malaysian Edible Mushroom, Termitomyces heimii Natarajan

Abstract

Termitomyces heimii is highly priced due to its unique taste unlike many other cultivated mushrooms. Termitomyces heimii, an edible mushroom, has high nutritive value. It is a fungus that usually lives in termite hills. There are limited reports on the chemical investigations of Termitomyces heimii. This may be due to difficulty in obtaining wild fruit bodies, as these are seasonal mushrooms. Twenty-eight compounds were identified from the extract of ethyl acetate fraction of the fruiting bodies of Termitomyces heimii using spectrometric and spectroscopic techniques. The components in the sub-fractions from the ethyl acetate extract were identifed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and NMR analysis. The compounds identified included fatty acids and the methyl and ethyl esters and sterols. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the isolation and identification of components from Termitomyces heimii.