Multielemental Inductively Coupled Plasma – Optical Emission Spectrometric (ICP-OES) Method for the Determination of Nutrient and Toxic Elements in Wild Mushrooms Coupled to Unsupervised and Supervised Chemometric Tools for Their Classification by Species

Abstract

An inductively coupled plasma – optical emission spectrometric (ICP-OES) method was employed to assess the elemental composition of the wild mushrooms belonging to the species of Craterellus cornucopioides, Boletus aereus, and Cantharellus cibarius. The ICP-OES method was validated in terms of linearity, accuracy, precision, limits of detection (LODs), and limits of quantification (LOQs). The relative recoveries of the proposed method were between 80.9% and 119.7%, while the relative standard deviation values were less than 8.8%. The limits of detection and quantification of the ICP-OES method were between 0.02 mg/kg (Mn) − 1.37 mg/kg (Αl), and between 0.08 mg/kg (Mn) − 4.57 mg/kg (Al), respectively. Al, B, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Ni, and Zn were determined, and the results were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). One-way ANOVA was used to identify statistically significant differences based on the metal content and the mushroom species. Finally, a partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) model was developed to classify the samples based on their elemental profile according to their species.