CHARACTERIZATION OF CULTIVATED STRAINS OF A NEW EDIBLE MUSHROOM - STROPHARIA RUGOSO-ANNULATA .1. PROTEIN VARIABILITY

Fourteen cultivated strains of the edible mushroom Stropharia rugoso-a nnulata have been collected from different research groups in Europe a nd compared to evaluate intraspecific variability. Electrophoretic ana lysis of soluble mycelium proteins was found to be an efficient tool t o describe the variability. The relative similarities between total pr otein patterns and esterase isozymes, as calculated from the Rogger's and Jaccard's coefficients, and the resultant dendrograms allowed us t o characterize two main clusters of strains: the first one consisted o f seven strains from Belgium, Germany, France and Hungary and the seco nd included four strains from Germany and Hungary. The three remaining strains isolated following total protein analysis could be considered , with respect to esterase pattern, as close to one or the other group . The esterase enzyme study appeared as a more powerful tool to assess the intraspecific variability. This is of special interest for furthe r work aimed at improving the commercial quality of Stropharia.