To investigate the differences in characteristic components of Lentinula edodes based on different drying methods, and identify unique compositional markers.

This study took the main cultivated strain 939 of Lentinula edodes from Xixia County, Nanyang City, Henan Province as the research object. Ultra performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole/linear ion trap mass spectrometry was employed to determine the content differences of bioactive substances (e.g., ergosterol), organic acids (e.g., succinic acid) and free amino acids(e.g., aspartic acid). Combined with multivariate statistical data analysis, the variations in characteristic components of Lentinula edodes subjected to different drying methods were systematically investigated.

Compared with other drying methods, the total content of bioactive components such as ergosterol in Lentinula edodes was higher after vacuum freeze-drying and microwave vacuum freeze-drying; the total content of organic acids such as succinic acid reached the highest level after microwave vacuum freeze-drying; and the total content of free amino acids was the highest after vacuum freeze-drying. Orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) was applied to analyze the metabolite profiles under the 5 kinds of drying methods. Based on OPLS-DA, the criteria of P<0.05, variable importance in projection (VIP)>1, and fold change (FC)>2 or FC<0.5, a total of 7 differential compounds were identified, namely succinic acid, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, citric acid, malic acid, arginine and proline, which could clearly discriminate Lentinula edodes subjected to different drying treatments.

In this study, targeted metabolomics is employed to compare the content differences of characteristic components in Lentinula edodes under various drying methods, thereby providing data support for the optimization of drying processes and the high‑value utilization of Lentinula edodes in processing.