ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Toxicol.
Sec. Food and Nutritional Toxicology
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/ftox.2025.1651442
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Safety Assessment of Novel Foods and New Nutrient SourcesView all articles
A toxicological assessment of Hericium erinaceus (Lion's Mane) and Trametes versicolor (Turkey Tail) mushroom powders
Provisionally accepted
- 1M2 Ingredients, Vista, CA, United States
- 2Pharmacognosy Institute, Retzky College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois, Chicago, United States
- 3University of Johannesburg Department of Botany and Plant Biotechnology, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 4Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology (MIET), Meerut, India
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Hericium erinaceus (Lion's mane) and Trametes versicolor (Turkey Tail) are mushrooms known for their long history of use as food and in traditional medicine. Oftentimes, they are available as extract preparations produced from selected lifestages such as fruiting body or mycelium. Their composition may vary based on where they are grown and the conditions of post-harvest preparation. Despite their widespread traditional use and popularity, comprehensive toxicological assessments, particularly of powdered whole mushroom preparations, remain limited. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential for acute toxicity, subchronic toxicity, and genotoxicity of commercially available Organic Lion's Mane M2-102-10 powder (H. erinaceus mycelial biomass and fruiting body cultured on oats) and Organic Turkey Tail M2-101-03 powder (T. versicolor mycelial biomass and primordia cultured on oats) in accordance with OECD guidelines. The results demonstrated that both Organic Lion's Mane M2-102-10 powder and Organic Turkey Tail M2-101-03 powder were not acutely toxic, showed no evidence of subchronic oral toxicity in rats at doses up to 2000 mg/kg body weight/day, and did not exhibit genotoxic potential based on in vitro and in vivo genotoxicity assays.
Keywords: Hericium erinaceus, Lion's Mane, Trametes versicolor, turkey tail, mushroom, Mycelium, fruiting body, Toxicity
Received: 21 Jun 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mahadevan, Daoust, Brendler, Chaudhary, Saifi and Garg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kritika Mahadevan, kritika@m2ingredients.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.