LAUSR

The aim of this study was to determine the contents of cadmium and lead ions in edible mushrooms collected from the natural environment. Then the degree of heavy metals released from their fruiting bodies into artifi cial digestive juices was determined. The experiment involved seven species of edible mushrooms. The study also involved in vitro cultures of Imleria badia enriched with cadmium and lead, in order to determine the relationship of increased metal content in the culture medium and the degree of their accumulation in the resulting biomass. This was shown in conditions simulating the human gastrointestinal tract, after extracting from mushroom material into artifi cial digestive juices, and was found that the contents of cadmium and lead are well below the acceptable limits for human consumption. A small percentage of these metals released into artifi cial digestive juices from the in vitro cultures cultivated on media with cadmium and lead ions indicate that both metals are highly accumulated in mushrooms. It was shown that both elements are released more effi ciently in the environment of gastric juice, where 23.6% and 21.5% of the total contents in the examined mushrooms were found to be cadmium and lead, respectively. Based on the obtained results, we can conclude that the examined species of mushrooms collected from their natural environment are not a threat to human health due to the presence of the examined heavy metals.