A preliminary study of plant aroma profile characteristics by a combination sampling method coupled with GC-MS

Plant aroma profile characteristic is an important bio-information. In this study, a sampling method in combination with headspace solid phase microextraction (HSSPME), simultaneous distillation extraction (SIDE) and steam distillation (SD), followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) detection, was used to study the aroma profile characteristics of the fresh and stale samples of common tomato, cherry tomato, durian and longan, and of the different samples of Chinese mango and Allium varieties. The typical aroma volatiles of these samples were isolated and identified according to the different degrees of certainty. The different samples showed different aroma profile characteristics when principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted to analyze the data of the aroma profile chromatograms. Then the crucial aroma volatiles contributing greatly to the clustering differences of the aroma profile characteristics of the fresh and stale common tomato, cherry tomato, durian and longan were identified by common model strategy. These compounds are potential bio-mnarkers of plant metabolism, but further study is needed. Continuous investigations for the aroma profile characteristics of common tomato during storage and chive during growth were conducted to distill the potential bio-information from the plant metabolism processes. The saturated hexanal of common tomato increased during storage, whereas the unsaturated hexenal reduced. The accumulating trends of volatile sulfides were observed during chive growth. The preliminary results related with the corresponding bio-information could provide helpful clues to the study of plant's secondary metabolism process and benefit quality control. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.