Abstract: To study the difference in amino acid contents of different edible mushroom varieties, the contents of 17 amino acids in 14 edible mushroom varieties from the Chinese Market were determined by an automatic amino acid analyzer and the data obtained were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). Further, comprehensive evaluation of these mushroom varieties was conducted by using the subordinate function method, and they were classified by clustering analysis. The results showed that four principal components were extracted, cumulatively explaining 86.909% of the total variance. Met, Lys, Val, Pro, His, Thr, Lys, Ile and Cys were selected as comprehensive evaluation indexes by comprehensive analysis. The decreasing order of the quality of the tested mushroom varieties as evaluated by the subordinate function method were as follows: Copyinds comatus (Muii. Fr) Gray > Agaricus bisporus > Pleurotus eryngii > Agrocybe cylindracea > Volvariella volvacea (Bull.:Fr.) Sing. > Lentinus edodes (Berk.) Sing > Hypsizygus marmoreus (Peck) H.E. Bigelow > Stropharia rugoso-annulata Farlow apud Murrill > Flammulina velutipes > P. citrinopileatus > Russula pseudodelica Lang > P. tuber-regium (Fr.) Sing = Oudemansiella radicata > P. ostreatus. Clustering analysis showed that the mushroom varieties were clustered into three groups. Group I included C. comatus (Muii. Fr) Gray, A. bisporus, P. eryngii and Agrocybe cylindraceachashugu. Group II included V. volvacea (Bull.:Fr.) Sing., L. edodes (Berk.) Sing, H. marmoreus (Peck) H.E. Bigelow, S. rugoso-annulata Farlow apud Murrill, F. velutipes, P. citrinopileatus, R. pseudodelica Lang, P. tuber-regium (Fr.) Sing, and O. radicata. Group III included P. ostreatus. The highest, intermediate and lowest comprehensive scores were observed for groups I, and II and III, respectively.

Key words: edible mushroom; principal component analysis; subordinate function; cluster analysis; comprehensive evaluation