Autolysis occurs widely in edible mushroom fruiting bodies after harvest, but the mechanism is still unclear. In this study, quantitative proteomics and bioinformatics analyses have been applied for revealing the autolysis mechanism of postharvest Coprinus comatus fruiting bodies. The results indicated that the autolysis mechanism of postharvest C. comatus was complicated. Before pileus opening, the carbohydrate metabolism including cell wall hydrolysis and energy biosynthesis, which were probably regulated by the ribosome, was involved in mushroom autolysis, whereas after pileus opening, the autolysis mechanism was related to the accumulated reactive oxygen species (ROS) and activated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway based on the Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses. Furthermore, the changes in cell wall components and hydrolases, along with the production of ROS and the activities of oxidoreductase in C. comatus, were also verified to confirm the proteomic analysis results.
Keywords: Coprinus comatus; autolysis mechanism; mushroom; postharvest; proteomics.