Site-Specific Assessment of Potentially Toxic Element Accumulation and Pretreatment Response in Urban Wild Agaricus spp.

Urban mushrooms can reflect contaminant inputs from soil and atmospheric deposition, linking ecosystem quality with potential human exposure. This study compared potentially toxic element (PTE) accumulation in wild Agaricus spp. collected from an urban park in Almaty, Kazakhstan, with that in retail-purchased Agaricus spp. and evaluated pretreatment response. Aluminium (Al), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), arsenic (As), and cadmium (Cd) were quantified by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) before and after 1 h ultrasound-assisted treatment with citric acid or ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) (0.5 and 8 g/L). Wild samples contained higher concentrations of all investigated elements, including approximately 60-fold higher Cd and 40-fold higher Al concentrations. After conversion to fresh weight using a dry-matter fraction of 0.07, Cd and total As in untreated wild samples exceeded the corresponding Technical Regulation of the Customs Union (TR CU) 021/2011 screening benchmarks. Citric acid at 8 g/L produced the largest decreases in wild mushrooms: Cd decreased from 6.64 ± 0.09 to 2.46 ± 0.02 mg/kg, Al from 421 ± 15 to 70 ± 2 mg/kg, and Ni from 1.5 ± 0.3 to 0.61 ± 0.07 mg/kg dry weight. Target hazard quotient (THQ) and hazard index (HI) values remained below 1 under the defined consumption scenario. The marked concentration differences and differential pretreatment responses show different elemental profiles between the examined wild and retail samples and may indicate potential differences in dietary exposure under the defined consumption scenario.