Enzyme-assisted extraction enhancing the umami taste amino acids recovery from several cultivated mushrooms

- Enzymes are used to enhance umami free amino acids extraction from six mushrooms.
- Factors affecting the extraction process are evaluated.
- Both cellulolytic and proteolytic enzymes have been used.
- β-Glucanase alone did not enhance the yield of umami amino acids.
- β-Glucanase-Flavourzyme® combination improved the yield up to 20 folds.

In this study, enzyme-assisted extraction was performed to extract umami taste and total free amino acids (FAAs) from the six different mushrooms including shiitake (Lentinus edodes), oyster (Pleurotus ostreatus), tea tree (Agrocybe aegerita) and, white, brown and portobello champignons (Agaricus bisporus). β-Glucanase and Flavourzyme® were used as the enzymes for cell wall and proteins hydrolysis, respectively. It was found that β-glucanase treatment alone did not enhance the extraction efficiency, however in combination, β-glucanase and Flavourzyme® enhanced the extraction efficiency significantly up to 20-fold compared to conventional HCl mediated extraction, depending on the mushroom species. The optimal conditions for the enzyme treatment were: water as extraction solvent (initial pH = 7), enzyme concentration of 5% v/w each of β-glucanase and Flavourzyme®, temperature 50 °C and an incubation time of 1 h. White and brown champignons were found to be the richest source of umami taste FAAs (26.75 ± 1.07 and 25.6 ± 0.9 mg/g DM, respectively).