In this context, it was found that the Li present in the mushroom was more accessible than the same element in the psychiatric drug containing Li2CO3 (Fig. 2). Similar results were also reported by Elless et al. (2000) when comparing the solubility of Fe, Zn, Mn, Se and Cr present in Brassica juncea enriched with different doses of minerals with multimineral supplements. They verified that all of the minerals present in plant tissue were more accessible

and potentially more bioavailable than those in the supplements. In vitro digestion using gastric and intestinal fluids was conducted independently, to confirm the results of the sequential Selleck SCH727965 extraction. The in vitro digestion is a method to quantify the accessibility of nutrients but not the bioavailability; thus, not all of the accessible material is absorbed. Therefore, this method does not utilise most of the physiological factors that are involved in the uptake and utilisation of the nutrient. However, it has a low cost and allows for an accurate control of the variables, which makes it an important model for predicting bioavailability ( Glahn et al., 1998). Both results, including the sequential extraction and in vitro digestion, showed

that the accessibility of Li in the mushrooms was higher than the accessibility of psychiatric drug containing Li2CO3 ( Fig. 2, Table 3). According to Elless et al. (2000), the see more high pH of the intestinal fluid can precipitate cationic metals; however, metals associated Niclosamide with the biomass of the fungus can be chelated with organic compounds, which rules out precipitation as one of the reasons for the greater accessibility of the Li was present in the mushrooms compared to that in the tested drug. Thus, using the digestion data that were obtained in the present study and assuming that

an adequate intake of Li is 1 mg d−1 (Aral & Vecchio-Sadus, 2008) and that its accessibility in the gastrointestinal tract is 70.51% (Table 3), the consumption of 10 g of dried mushrooms produced from coffee husks that are enriched with 500 mg kg−1 of LiCl would provide approximately 100% of the recommended intake. P. ostreatus mushroom enriched with lithium has high potential for being used as an alternative source of high accessibility of this microelement. The high concentration of the minerals in the biomass of the fungus was associated with a higher degree of accessibility in sequential extraction and in vitro digestion, in relation to a psychiatric drug containing Li2CO3. This result supports the use of Li-enriched mushrooms as a source of Li. Further research on the bioavailability of minerals in P. ostreatus mushrooms will provide important information about the effective absorption, physiological effects and influences of Li-enriched mushrooms in promoting and maintaining human health.