Determination of ibotenic acid and muscimol in species of the genus Amanita section Amanita from China

The genus Amanita sect. Amanita harbors approximately 150 species in the world, and 27 species have been recognized in China. Some of the species in China have continuously caused poisoning. The responsible toxins should be ibotenic acid (IBO) and muscimol (MUS). However, species of the section Amanita containing IBO and MUS and their systematic positions are unclear. In this study, the contents of IBO and MUS in 84 samples of 24 species in section Amanita were detected using UPLC‒MS/MS, and the distribution of toxin-containing species in the molecular phylogeny was analyzed by the combined (ITS, nrLSU, RPB2, TUB2 and TEF1-α) dataset using maximum likelihood (ML) analysis and Bayesian inference (BI). Our results indicated that 10 of the 24 species contained IBO and MUS ranging from 0.6125 to 32.0932 and 0.0056–5.8685 g/kg dry weight, respectively. Among these 10 species, the toxins of eight species, including Amanita altipes, A. concentrica, A. flavopantherina, A. griseopantherina, A. pseudopantherina, A. rubrovolvata, A. subglobosa and A. sychnopyramis, were detected for the first time. In addition, the IBO and MUS contents of A. subglobosa in different growth stages showed that both toxins decreased in the mature stage. The phylogenetic analysis showed that all species of sect. Amanita from China were divided into 5 groups. And IBO- and MUS-containing species were gathered in clades Ⅰ and Ⅳ, but not all of the species in the two clades contain the toxins. No presence of IBO and MUS in the species of clades Ⅱ, Ⅲ and Ⅴ were confirmed.