Volatilomics of raspberry fruit germplasm by combining chromatographic and direct-injection mass spectrometric techniques

Brian Farneti; Iuliia Khomenko; Matteo Ajelli; Karen Elizabeth Wells; Emanuela Betta; Eugenio Aprea; Lara Giongo; Franco Biasioli

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2023.1155564

Volatilomics of raspberry fruit germplasm by combining chromatographic and direct-injection mass spectrometric techniques

Front Mol Biosci. 2023 Apr 13:10:1155564. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2023.1155564. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Brian Farneti¹, Iuliia Khomenko², Matteo Ajelli¹, Karen Elizabeth Wells¹, Emanuela Betta², Eugenio Aprea^{2

3}, Lara Giongo¹, Franco Biasioli²

Affiliations

¹ Berries Genetics and Breeding Unit, Research and Innovation Centre of Fondazione Edmund Mach, Trento, Italy.
² Sensory Quality Unit, Research and Innovation Centre of Fondazione Edmund Mach, Trento, Italy.
³ Center Agriculture Food Environment C3A, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.

Abstract

The application of direct-injection mass spectrometric (DI-MS) techniques, like Proton Transfer Reaction Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (PTR-ToF-MS) has been suggested as a reliable phenotyping tool for fruit volatilome assessment in both genetic and quality-related studies. In this study the complexity of raspberry aroma was investigated by a comprehensive untargeted VOC analysis, done by combining SPME-GC-MS and PTR-ToF-MS assessments with multi-block discriminant analysis using the DIABLO mixOmics framework. The aim was to acquire an exhaustive characterization of the raspberry volatilome according to different fruit ripening stages (pink, ripe, and overripe) and genetic variances (50 accessions), as well as to investigate the potential of PTR-ToF-MS as a rapid and high throughput VOC phenotyping tool to address issues related to raspberry fruit quality. Results of this study demonstrated the complementarity between SPME-GC-MS and PTR-ToF-MS techniques to evaluate the raspberry aroma composition. PTR-ToF-MS generates reliable raspberry VOC fingerprints mainly due to a reduced compound fragmentation and precise content estimation. In addition, the high collinearity between isomers of monoterpenes and norisoprenoids, discovered by GC analysis, reduces the main analytic limitation of PTR-ToF-MS of not being able to separate isomeric molecules. The high similarity between the VOC matrices obtained by applying PTR-ToF-MS and SPME-GC-MS confirmed the possibility of using PTR-ToF-MS as a reliable high throughput phenotyping tool for raspberry volatiolome assessment. In addition, results provided by the germplasm collection investigation enabled to distinguish the best performing accessions, based on VOCs composition, to be used as superior parental lines for future breeding programs.

Keywords: PTR-ToF-MS; Rubus idaeus L.; SPME-GC-MS; VOCs; germplasm; phenotyping; quality.

Grants and funding

This study was carried out within the Agritech National Research Center and received funding from the European Union Next-GenerationEU (PIANO NAZIONALE DI RIPRESA E RESILIENZA (PNRR)—MISSIONE 4 COMPONENTE 2, INVESTIMENTO 1.4—D.D. 1032 17/06/2022, CN00000022). This manuscript reflects only the authors’ views and opinions, neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be considered responsible for them. This work was financially supported by the AdP of the PAT (Provincia Autonoma di Trento) and by the project AppleBerry (L6/99 of the PAT).