Abstract:To systematically evaluate the variation patterns in the overall amino acid quality among different varieties of edible fungi，seven varieties of edible fungi were selected as research subjects. The content and types of their amino acids were determined using a fully automated amino acid analyzer. A comprehensive evaluation of the amino acids in the edible fungi was conducted by applying the taste-activity value （TAV），correlation analysis （CA），principal component analysis （PCA），and hierarchical cluster analysis （HCA）methods. The results showed that the total free amino acid （TFAA） content across the edible fungi ranged from 9.68-21.53 mg/g. Among them，shiitake mushrooms had the highest TFAA content，while seafood mushrooms had the lowest TFAA content. The coefficient of variation for amino acids among the varieties ranged from 16.84%-56.28%. In the seven edible fungi，the content levels of flavor-contributing amino acids ranked as follows： aromatic amino acids > umami amino acids > bitter amino acids > sweet amino acids. Notably，the TAVs of lysine and alanine were both greater than 1，indicating significant contributions to umami. Different varieties of edible fungi exhibited strong correlations： Valine showed a highly significant positive correlation with phenylalanine and methionine，while threonine showed a highly significant negative correlation with proline and glutamic acid. PCA extracted three principal components，with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 84.844%. The comprehensive evaluation indicated that white mushrooms held a relative advantage in amino acid content. The results of hierarchical cluster analysis were consistent with those of PCA，classifying the seven edible fungi into three clusters： The first cluster consisted of shiitake mushroom； the second cluster included white mushroom，crab-flavor mushroom，and king oyster mushroom，and the third cluster comprised velvet antler mushroom，seafood mushroom，and enoki mushroom.