The mycological laboratory of the Department of Botany, Goa University on Wednesday reported the discovery of a new pigment from local wild mushrooms.
“We are proud to report a new suphur-rich melanin biopigment of immense bioindustrial, biomedical (anti-cancer, anti-tumour) and biotechnological potential from local Roen alamis (wild variety of Goan mushrooms that grows on termite hills) or Termitomyces species,” said Dr. Nandakumar Kamat, Assistant Professor of Botany, department of Goa University here on Wednesday.
“Our paper was published on July 9 in Mycology: International Journal Of Fungal Biology affiliated to Mycological Society of China, and published by Taylor and Francis, U.S.. This discovery shows the chemical nature of the brown or black colour that you see in these wild edible mushrooms,” explained Dr. Kamat, with more than two decades of research experience on mushrooms.
Dr. Kamat said that his Ph.D student, Rosy de Souza, who is a national scholar under DST INSPIRE, cracked the problem in three years, which had eluded scientific community from 40 countries for the past 100 years.
“More than 50 teams are working on these mushrooms, globally, but we in Goa got the lead now. People of Goa who consume these mushrooms are actually eating sulphur-rich melanin. We declare it as world’s first sulphur-rich edible melanin. Its structure is similar to black pigment found in human hair,” said an excited Dr. Kamat.
He said that the Chinese editors of their paper have advised them to continue their research on this pigment.
