Primary and secondary metabolites of an European edible mushroom and its nutraceutical value: Suillus bellinii (Inzenga) Kuntze

In this work, we report the study on the composition in primary and secondary metabolites of the polar and less-polar fractions obtained from the fruiting bodies of Suillus bellinii (Inzenga) Kuntze collected from Central Italy. Thirteen compounds were identified through a series of classical chromatographic methods and through spectroscopic techniques (nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS)), namely suillin (1), ergosterol (2), glutamic acid (3), isoleucine (4), leucine (5), threonine (6), tyrosine (7), valine (8), D-mannitol (9), sucrose (10), D-sorbitol (11), fumaric acid (12) and alanine (13). These results allowed us to make specific considerations about the possible applications of this mushroom, which vary from medicine, due to the high cytotoxic and antitumor properties of suillin (1), to nutritional values, due to the presence of essential nutrients as amino acids and pre-vitamin D₂ (ergosterol), together with low-calories sweeteners, confirming the close association between the identified components and the health-promoting properties of this species.