Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) was purified and characterized from a dried wild edible and medicinal mushroom (Volvariella bombycina). Using Sepharose 4B-L-tyrosine-p-aminobenzoic acid affinity chromatography, PPO was purified from the dried V. bombycina. The purification was completed with a 33.85-fold purification. On sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), the purified enzyme migrated as a single band. The molecular weight of the purified enzyme was estimated by SDS-PAGE to be about 25 kDa. Catechol, 4-methyl catechol, and pyrogallol were used as substrates to determine the enzyme activity and its kinetic parameters (Km and Vmax). At the optimum pH and temperature, dried V. bombycina PPO’s Km and Vmax values for catechol, 4-methyl catechol, and pyrogallol were found to be 1.67 mM–833.33 U/mL, 3.17 mM–158.73 U/mL, and 2.67 mM–3333.33 U/mL, respectively. Also investigated were the effects of pH and temperature on the enzymatic properties of PPO in dried V. bombycina. The optimum pH and temperature values for dried V. bombycina PPO obtained by using catechol, 4-methyl catechol, and pyrogallol as substrates were 6.5, 15 ℃; 9.0, 20 ℃; and 8.0, 15℃, respectively. This is the first study on the purification and characterization of PPO from dried V. bombycina.

The study and conservation of biodiversity is one of the global problems of modern biology, since currently in many regions of the planet there is a decrease in the species composition of various organisms, including fungi. The obtained data make a significant contribution to the knowledge of the diversity of macromycetes of oak forests in the middle reaches of the Ural River, information about which is still insufficient and fragmented on the territory of Kazakhstan.The article presents data on the biodiversity of mycobiota of the oak forests of the Ural River valley, growing not only in the floodplain of the river, but also in beams, that is, the ravine forests flowing into the central floodplain. We have registered 31 species belonging to 23 genera, 17 families and five orders. The leading families are Polyporaceae, Boletaceae, Russulaceae, Amanitaceae. As a result of our research, it has been found that the mycological composition in ravine oak forests is richer than in floodplain oak forests. The richness of the species composition of macromycetes appears to have been influenced by well-defined associations in ravine oak forests (22 associations), represented by forest boreal tree-shrub species absent in floodplain oak forests, as well as favorable microclimatic conditions, relief, soil cover and various ecotopes that are not observed in floodplain oak forests (16 associations).Ecological-trophic analysis showed the predominance of mycorrhizal (45.1%) and xylotrophs (41.9%) over humus saprotrophs (12.9%). The considered taxonomic composition of macromycetes of the studied area is collected, identified and presented for the first time for this region.

In this study, phylogenetic analysis of some fungal species distributed in West Kazakhstan was performed based on ITS sequences. All of the mushroom samples were collected from different regions of West Kazakhstan and brought to the laboratory. Total genomic DNA was extracted using a GeneMark commercial kit. ITS1 and ITS4 primers were used for the amplification of the ITS region in PCR analyses. The resulting DNA sequences were then edited using BioEdit and FinchTV. For phylogenetic analysis used MEGA 6.0 program. As a result of the study, ITS sequences ranged from 532 to 715 nucleotides, while the divergence values of the sequences differed between 0.000 and 0.468. The maximum likelihood tree constructed using ITS sequences consists of two clades. According to the phylogenetic analysis results obtained using other fungal species, ITS results were found to be a good indicator for the differentiation of fungal genera.