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Tomato fruit volatile profiles are highly dependent on sample processing and capturing methods

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Abstract

Volatile compounds are together with sugars and organic acids the main determinants of tomato fruit flavour and are therefore important for consumer acceptance. Consequently, in the last years many studies have been performed using different volatile analytical techniques on a large diversity of tomato fruits, aimed mainly at detecting the compounds affecting flavour or at the identification of QTLs and key genes involved in fruit volatile contents. The comparison of three of the analytical methods most commonly applied (headspace, solid phase microextraction, adsorption on Tenax followed by thermal desorption) revealed not only differences in sensitivity, but also dramatic variations in the volatile profile obtained by each of these techniques. The volatile profile was also largely influenced by the way samples were processed before analysis. Four widely used sample processing methods were compared (whole tomato, sliced fruit and two different types of fruit paste), each one producing a characteristic volatile pattern. Therefore, great care should be taken when comparing results available from the literature obtained by means of different methods, or when using the volatile levels obtained in an experiment to predict their influence on tomato flavor or consumer preference, or to assess the success of breeding programs.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Rafael Fernández for providing excellent tomato fruits for this study. Funding to AG was provided through CALITOM and ESPSOL from FECYT and EUSOL (EU FP7 program) and Quality Fruit FA 1106.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas, CSIC, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Jose L. Rambla, Aurora Medina & Antonio Granell

  2. Centro de Ecología Química Agrícola, Instituto Agroforestal Mediterráneo, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Cristina Alfaro & Jaime Primo

  3. Departamento de Estadística e Investigación Operativa Aplicadas y Calidad, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Manuel Zarzo

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  1. Jose L. Rambla
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  2. Cristina Alfaro
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  3. Aurora Medina
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  4. Manuel Zarzo
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  5. Jaime Primo
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  6. Antonio Granell
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Correspondence to Jose L. Rambla.

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Jose Luis Rambla, Cristina Alfaro, Aurora Medina, Manuel Zarzo, Jaime Primo and Antonio Granell declared that they have no conflict of interest.

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11306_2015_824_MOESM1_ESM.pptx

Supplementary material 1 Table S1. Relative abundance of volatile compounds after different capturing methods. Footnote. Values represent the contribution of each individual compound related to the sum of the areas of all the peaks in the chromatogram, expressed as a percentage. RT, Retention Time (min); Kovats RI, Kovats Retention Index; m/z, specific ion used for compound quantitation; nd, not detected. (PPTX 103 kb)

11306_2015_824_MOESM2_ESM.pptx

Supplementary material 2 Figure S1. Representative Total Ion Chromatograms (TIC) obtained by each of the capturing methods used. Chromatograms are scaled to the highest peak (100 %). Numbers on the top right of each chromatogram indicate the absolute height (counts) as registered by the detector for the highest peak. In order to facilitate visual alignment of chromatograms, the peak corresponding to (Z)-3-hexenal + hexanal has been marked with an asterisk. (PPTX 80 kb)

11306_2015_824_MOESM3_ESM.xlsx

Supplementary material 3 Figure S2. Representative Total Ion Chromatograms (TIC) obtained by each of the sample processing methods used. Chromatograms are scaled to the highest peak (100 %). Numbers on the top right of each chromatogram indicate the absolute height (counts) as registered by the detector for the highest peak (XLSX 24 kb)

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Rambla, J.L., Alfaro, C., Medina, A. et al. Tomato fruit volatile profiles are highly dependent on sample processing and capturing methods. Metabolomics 11, 1708–1720 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-015-0824-5

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