Identification and Determination of Compounds Unique to Hericium in an Edible New Zealand Mushroom Hericium novae-zealandiae

Hericium novae-zealandiae is a native mushroom traditionally consumed by the indigenous Māori of New Zealand. To study erinacines and hericenones, compounds reported to be unique to the genus Hericium, the small molecular lipophilic constituents of H. novae-zealandiae were evaluated by chromatography coupled with diode array detection. Ethanol was used as an extraction solvent for the detection and quantification of these lipophilic targets. Hericenone C was detected from the ethanol extract of H. novae-zealandiae, but erinacine A and hericenone D were not found present in this extract. A method coupling HPLC with DAD was developed to determine the quantity of hericenone C using a reversed-phase C18 column, with gradient elution consisting of methanol and 0.1% formic acid as mobile phases and detection at 295 nm. The validation conducted of this method included parameters of selectivity, linearity, precision, accuracy and robustness, and all validation results were acceptable. Hericenone C was measured as comprising 0.75 mg/g dry weight of the mushroom. This is the first report of research on erinacine A, hericenone C and hericenone D in H. novae-zealandiae. This is also the first report of an analytical method suitable for the quantification of hericenone C in this species. More compounds unique to Hericium are expected to be reported when further investigations are carried out on this newly studied species of Hericium.