Comparison of major nutritional constituents and genetic diversity analysis of five strains of oyster mushrooms

Oyster mushroom is the second runner-up among commercially produced mushrooms due to its delicious taste, higher nutritional and medicinal properties. The objectives of this study were to determine the nutritional variation through the analysis of obtained nutritional values and to assess the genetic diversity through RAPD marker of five different strains of oyster mushrooms namely Pleurotus cystidiosus (strain: pcys2); Pleurotus djamor (pop1); Pleurotus ostreatus (ws); Pleurotus ostreatus (po3) and Pleurotus geesteranus (pg4). The strains showed variations in moisture, protein, fiber, lipid, ash and carbohydrate content ranged from 86.10-87.33%; 17.8-24.13 gm/100gm; 18.16-25.46 gm/100gm; 3.16-5.16 gm/100gm; 9.16-11.46 gm/100gm; and 35.4-45.33 gm/100gm respectively. In case of genetic diversity, the segregation of five strains of oyster mushrooms were grouped through un-weighted pair group method of arithmetic means average (UPGMA), where strains were grouped into two main clusters and the generated linkage distance was 48. The strains pop1 and po3 were aligned in cluster two (C2) due to their genetic similarity but showed dissimilarities with other strains. Though the strains pcys2, ws, and pg4 were aligned in the same cluster (C1), the strain ws was aligned in a different sub-cluster due to its few dissimilarities with the other two strains. The variation of nutritional values and genetic diversities among the mushroom strains indicates nutritional and genetic variabilities. The findings of current study indicate that, though these mushrooms were genetically dissimilar, all strains were nutritious with high protein and fiber contents with low fat. However, mushroom breeder can consider strain po3 for high protein content, strain ws for high fiber content and strain pop1 for low fat content.