Comprehensive investigation on non-volatile and volatile flavor compounds in the Morchella sextelata and Morchella importuna by UPLC-MS/MS and GC × GC-TOF-MS

Yanmei Zhang; Xiaobei Li; Zhiyong Zhao; Hengchao E; Tingting Fan; Hui Dong; Xiangwei He; Xiaoyan Zhao; Lihua Tang; Changyan Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.fochx.2023.100961

Comprehensive investigation on non-volatile and volatile flavor compounds in the Morchella sextelata and Morchella importuna by UPLC-MS/MS and GC × GC-TOF-MS

Food Chem X. 2023 Oct 26:20:100961. doi: 10.1016/j.fochx.2023.100961. eCollection 2023 Dec 30.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Agro-food Standards and Testing Technology, Laboratory of Quality and Safety Risk Assessment for Agro-products (Shanghai), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 1000 Jingqi Road, Shanghai 201403, China.
² Institute of Edible Fungi, National Engineering Research Centre of Edible Fungi, Key Laboratory of Edible Fungi Resources and Utilization (South), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai 201403, China.

Abstract

Morchella sextelata and Morchella importuna are the main cultivars of morel. However, the key compounds affecting their flavors (taste and odor) are currently unknown. Here, an ultra performance tandem mass spectrometry combined with two-dimensional gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry method was used to detect and relatively quantify the metabolites in both morel cultivars. A total of 631 non-volatile compounds and 242 volatile compounds were identified. The odor activity value was calculated to assess the contribution of key odor volatile. The results indicated that M. importuna had a sweeter flavor than M. sextelata. The former posed more prominent mushroom flavor than the latter based on the correlation analysis of the metabolites. The flavor differences of the two morel cultivars are highly relevant with the content of lipids, carbohydrates, amino acids and derivatives, alcohols and ketones. This study provides new insights into the theoretical basis for the flavor differences in both morel cultivars.

Keywords: Flavor differences; GC × GC-TOF/MS; Morel; UPLC-MS/MS; VOCs; non-VOCs.