Mechanism of inhibiting fresh Hericium erinaceus browning at low temperature.

Hericium erinaceus, also called Lion's Mane Mushroom (LMM), is a precious mushroom with a spherical fruit body and needle shaped mycelium. But the needle shaped mycelium of fresh mushroom is so tender that it is prone to damage during harvest and storage, resulting in browning and autolysis. In this article, the main reason of fresh LMN browning under different temperature was studied. The browning can be inhibited effectively at 1℃. Polyphenols of LMN, isolated and identified by LC-ESI-MS, were mainly L- dopa. During the storage, the activity of antioxidant enzymes including Superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and catalase (CAT) was higher in samples at 1℃. And the higher content of non-enzyme substances including ascorbic acid (AsA) and glutathione (GSH) was also found in samples at 1℃. It was likely that both these antioxidant enzymes and non-enzyme substances contributed to the antioxidant ability of LMM resulting in the inhibition of oxidation browning and enzymatic browning.