Volatilomic profile of the tree tomato (Solanum betaceum Cav.) pulp during ripening and senescence using HS–SPME with GC–MS
Maribel Quintero, Eliana Alvarez Valdez, Nelson Ceballos-Aguirre, Debora Duno, Gonzalo Taborda Ocampo
Abstract
The volatilomic profile of the tree tomato (Solanum betaceum Cav.) pulp during ripening stages and senescence times was determined by headspace solid-phase microextraction in combination with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The HS-SPME-GC-MS analysis allowed the identification of 46 metabolites that produce the metabolic fingerprint of this fruit, the major compounds at all ripening stages and senescence times were ethyl butanoate, methyl butanoate, β-myrcene and eucalyptol. The composition in the different stages was subjected to principal component analysis (PCA), which explained 77.3% of the total variance in the principal components. It allowed to classify the samples by ripening stages and senescence times and it was corroborated with K-means clustering and dendrogram analyses. Through multivariate analyses PCA, partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), and heatmap it was possible to determine volatiles methyl (E)-2-hexenoate, 4-tert-butylcyclohexyl acetate, methyl benzoate, methyl (Z)-3-hexenoate, 3-methylbutyl acetate, β-thujene, cis-3-hexenol, hexanal and trans-2-hexenal as potential markers in the ripening stages, while volatiles propyl butanoate, ethyl octanoate, ethyl acetate, ethyl butanoate, β-myrcene and estragol predominated in the senescence times. HS-SPME-GC-MS analysis of volatiles in combination with the chemometric approach used in this research allowed to make a clear distinction between ripening stages and senescence times in common red variety tree tomato pulp.