Determination of Agaritine in Cultivated Mushrooms using High Performance Liquid Chromatography with Fluorometric Detection

A rapid method for agaritine determination in cultivated mushrooms using HPLC with fluorescence detection is described. Agaritine was extracted with H2O/MeOH (50/50, v/v) and determined after derivatization with OPA-2-mercaptoethanol, by HPLC (C-18 column) with fluorescence detection at lambda(ex.)= 330 nm and lambda(em.)= 450 nm using a pH 7.3 acetate buffer (51%) and methanol (49%) as a mobile phase. Agaritine was obtained by synthesis. Agaritine concentration (% of fresh weight) varied from 0.063 to 0.098% with an average of 0.082% for Agaricus bisporus and from 0.050 to 0.087% with an average of 0.068% for Pleurotus ostreatus, The recovery, obtained by adding known amounts of agaritine to the mushroom sample, ranged from 93.6 to 97.3%.