Abstract
Garden thyme (Thymus vulgaris L.) and wild thyme (Thymus serpyllum L.) volatile components have been extracted using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) with polyamide nanofibers, prepared by electrospun technique. The polyamide nanofibers were used for SPME because of its high porosity and high surface to volume ratio. The homogeneity and porosity of the prepared polyamide nanofibers was investigated by scanning electron microscopy having diameters of 50–100 nm. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) together with chemometrics was implemented to resolve the co-eluted components and improve analytical performance. After applying multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) to resolve the overlapped and embedded peak clusters, 32 and 43 components have been identified in garden and wild thyme, respectively. Furthermore, principal component analysis (PCA) was implemented to characterize hidden structure and to identify volatiles differentiating between garden and wild thyme. The proposed strategy of SPME/GC-MS together with chemometrics may be useful for comprehensive and rapid analysis of complex natural extracts such as garden and wild thyme.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Asadollahi-Baboli M, Aghakhani A (2014) Rapid analysis of Origanum majorana L. fragrance using nanofiber sheet, GC-MS and chemometrics. J Sep Sci 37:990–996
Asadollahi-Baboli M, Mani-Varnosfaderani A (2014) Chemometrics assisted GC-MS analysis of volatile and semi-volatile constituents of Elettaria Cardamomum. Food Anal Methods 7:1745–1754
Bicchi C, Belliardo F, Cordero C, Liberto E, Rubiolo P, Sgorbini B (2006) Headspace-solid-phase microextraction in the analysis of the volatile fraction of aromatic and medicinal plants. J Chromatogr Sci 44:416–429
Daniel M (2006) Medicinal plants: chemistry and properties. Science Publishers, New York
Gemperline P (2006) Practical guide to chemometrics. Taylor & Francis, London
Giordiani R, Hadef Y, Kaloustina J (2008) Compositions and antifungal activities of essential oils of some Algerian aromatic plants. Fitoterapia 79:199–203
Golmakani M, Rezaei K (2008) Comparison of microwave-assisted hydrodistillation with the traditional hydrodistillation method in the extraction of essential oils from Thymus vulgaris L. Food Chem 109:925–930
Jalali-Heravi M, Parastar H, Kamalzadeh M, Tauler R, Jaumot J (2010) MCRC software: a tool for chemometric analysis of two-way chromatographic data. Chemom Intell Lab Syst 104:155–171
Jalali-Heravi M, Moazeni-Pourasil RS, Sereshti H (2014) Thorough analysis of Iranian spearmint essential oil: combination of chemometrics and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Anal Methods 6:6753–6759
Jaumot J, de Juan A, Tauler R (2015) MCR-ALS GUI 2.0: new features and applications. Chemom Intell Lab Syst 140:1–12
Jiang R, Pawliszyn J (2012) Thin-film microextraction offers another geometry for solid-phase microextraction. TrAC Trends Anal Chem 39:245–253
Jouki M, Mortazavi SA, Yazdi FT, Koocheki A (2014) Characterization of antioxidant antibacterial quince seed mucilage films containing thyme essential oil. Carbohydr Polym 99:537–546
Miao L, Cai W, Shao X (2011) Rapid analysis of multicomponent pesticide mixture by GC-MS with the aid of chemometric resolution. Talanta 83:1247–1253
Nikolic M, Glamoclija J, Ferreira I, Calhelha RC, Fernandes A, Markovic T, Markovic D, Giweli A, Sokovic M (2014) Chemical composition, antimicrobial, antioxidant and antitumor activity of Thymus serpyllum L., Thymus algeriensis Boiss. and Reut and Thymus vulgaris L. essential oils. Ind Crop Prod 52:183–190
Poon J, Poon SK (2014) Data analytics for traditional Chinese medicine research. Springer, New York
Rota MC, Herrera A, Martinez RM, Sotomayor JA, Jordan MJ (2008) Antimicrobial activity and chemical composition of Thymus vulgaris, Thymus zygis and Thymus hyemalis essential oils. Food Control 19:681–687
Sellamuthu PS, Sivakumar D, Soundy P (2013) Antifungal activity and chemical composition of thyme, peppermint and citronella oils in vapor phase against avocado and peach postharvest pathogens. J Food Saf 33:86–93
Stahl-Biskup E, Saez F (2003) Thyme: the genus Thymus. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, Florida
Staszek D, Orłowska M, Rzepa J, Wrobel MS, Kowalska T, Szymczak G, Waksmundzka-Hajnos M (2014) Fingerprinting of the volatile fraction from selected thyme species by means of headspace gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection. J AOAC Int 97:1250–1258
Tauler R, Walczak B, Brown SD (2009) Comprehensive chemometrics: chemical and biochemical data analysis. Elsevier, New York
Xanthopoulos P, Pardalos PM, Trafalis TB (2013) Robust data mining, SpringerBriefs in optimization. Springer, London
Conflict of Interest
M. Asadollahi-Baboli declares that he has no conflict of interest. A. Aghakhani declares that he has no conflict of interest. V. Bikdeloo declares that he has no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Asadollahi-Baboli, M., Aghakhani, A. & Bikdeloo, V. Application of Polyamide Nanofibers, SPME/GC-MS, and Chemometrics for Comprehensive Analysis of Volatiles in Thymus vulgaris L. and Thymus serpyllum L. Food Anal. Methods 9, 528–536 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-015-0224-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-015-0224-5