Multielement and chemometric analysis for the traceability of the Pachino Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) cherry tomatoes

Angela Giorgia Potortì; Antonio Francesco Mottese; Maria Rita Fede; Giuseppe Sabatino; Giacomo Dugo; Vincenzo Lo Turco; Rosaria Costa; Francesco Caridi; Marcella Di Bella; Giuseppa Di Bella

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.132746

Multielement and chemometric analysis for the traceability of the Pachino Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) cherry tomatoes

Food Chem. 2022 Aug 30:386:132746. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.132746. Epub 2022 Mar 22.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical, Dental, Morphological and Functional Imaging Sciences, University of Messina, Viale Annunziata, 98168 Messina, Italy.
² Department of Mathematics and Informatics, Physics and Earth Sciences (MIFT), University of Messina, Viale F. Stagno d'Alcontres 31, 98166 Messina, Italy. Electronic address: amottese@unime.it.
³ Department of Mathematics and Informatics, Physics and Earth Sciences (MIFT), University of Messina, Viale F. Stagno d'Alcontres 31, 98166 Messina, Italy.
⁴ Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Sezione di Palermo, Milazzo Office, Via dei Mille 46, 98057 Milazzo, ME, Italy; Sede Territoriale Sicilia, Dipartimento di Ecologia Marina Integrata, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (SZN), Via dei Mille 46, 98057 Milazzo, Italy.

PMID: 35334318
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.132746

Abstract

To prevent PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) cherry tomato of Pachino (Sicily, Italy) from frauds, an alternative method, which includes chemometric treatments, was proposed. The content of 32 inorganic elements (macro-micronutrients and lanthanides) present in 16 PGI and 24 not PGI cherry tomato samples cv Naomy, and in 16 PGI and 8 not PGI soil samples, was determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma - Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS). To identify the elements able to differentiate PGI and not PGI cherry tomato samples, Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Canonical discriminant analysis (CDA) were performed. The first two principal components (PC1-PC2) explain a total variance of 71,41% between PGI and not PGI group, whereas CDA showed Zn, Cd, Mn and Ca as inorganic markers able to correctly classify the 100% of samples. Furthermore, with a translocation factor (K), evaluated in soil/plant chain, the comparison of absorption trends for PGI and not PGI samples was realized.

Keywords: Food analysis; ICP-MS; Mineral elements; Multivariate statistics; Tomato; Traceability.

MeSH terms

Chemometrics
Discriminant Analysis
Sicily
Soil
Solanum lycopersicum*

Substances

Soil