Abstract
Volatile compounds are important contributors to the tomato fruit flavour. In this
study, ripe fruits of 96 tomato cultivars of three types (cherry, round and beef
tomatoes) have been used. These were firstly analyzed for sensory attributes by a
professional panel and then used to profile the volatile compounds using an
automated SPME-GC-MS approach. After optimization of the system, this
approach was shown to be a highly reproducible and reliable technique for
volatile compound analysis.
For an initial targeted analysis of 18 specific volatile compounds previously
proposed to contribute to fragrance and taste, the ion specific peak areas were
subjected to PCA. Clear correlations of known volatile compounds with the
different tomato types as well as specific cultivars were identified.
For an untargeted analysis “MetAlignTM” software was used for
automated baseline correction and alignment of all 203 available GC-MS datasets
in one automated run. The software detected over 20,000 masses. All masses
appeared to cluster into about 350 mass groups, representing volatile compounds.
PCA of the group-specific masses often revealed a clustering of chemically
related compounds or compounds coming from the same biochemical pathway.
Besides confirming the targeted approach it allowed identifying new compounds
correlated to the targeted compounds and sensory attributes
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Book of abstracts third international congress on plant metabolomics, Ames, Iowa, USA, 3-6 June 2004 |
Place of Publication | Ames, Iowa, USA |
Pages | 23 |
Publication status | Published - 2004 |