Gastrointestinal toxicity of Lampteromyces japonicus and its reduction by curing

Abstract

Lampteromyces japonicus (Japanese name, Tsukiyotake) is a poisonous and bioluminescent mushroom, which causes vomiting, stomachache and diarrhea. This mushroom is often mistaken by amateur mushroom hunters for the edible mushrooms Pleurotos osteatus (Hiratake). Lentinus edodes (Shiitake), and Panellus serotinus (Mukitake), since these species are all very similar in shape and color. Some people in the Shounai area of Yamagata Prefecture have eaten the salted poisonous mushrooms. We examined the gastrointestinal toxicity of the salted mushrooms and the nature of the toxic principles by using mice and frogs. Oral administration of the methanolic extract of L. japonicus to mice and frogs caused toxic effects such as swelling of the stomach in mice and vomiting in frogs. However, no toxic effects were associated with the extract of the sailed mushroom. Isolation of the toxic principles from L. japonicus with guidance by biological assay was carried out by chromatographic separation, NMR and mass spectroscopic analysis revealed that illudin S was one of the toxic principles.