Characterization of Volatile Compounds in Donkey Meat by Gas Chromatography–Ion Mobility Spectrometry (GC–IMS) Combined with Chemometrics

Abstract

Volatile compounds (VOCs) are an important factor affecting meat quality. However, the characteristic VOCs in different parts of donkey meat remain unknown. Accordingly, this study represents a preliminary investigation of VOCs to differentiate between different cuts of donkey meat by using headspace–gas chromatography–ion mobility spectrometry (HS–GC–IMS) combined with chemometrics analysis. The results showed that the 31 VOCs identified in donkey meat, ketones, alcohols, aldehydes, and esters were the predominant categories. A total of 10 VOCs with relative odor activity values ≥1 were found to be characteristic of donkey meat, including pentanone, hexanal, nonanal, octanal, and 3-methylbutanal. The VOC profiles in different parts of donkey meat were well differentiated using three- and two-dimensional fingerprint maps. Nine differential VOCs that represent potential markers to discriminate different parts of donkey meat were identified by chemometrics analysis. These include 2-butanone, 2-pentanone, and 2-heptanone. Thus, the VOC profiles in donkey meat and specific VOCs in different parts of donkey meat were revealed by HS–GC–IMS combined with chemometrics, whcih provided a basis and method of investigating the characteristic VOCs and quality control of donkey meat.

Characterization of lipids and volatile compounds in boiled donkey meat by lipidomics and volatilomics

“…For instance, the predominant lipids, differential lipids, and potential markers of roasted mutton have been investigated by untargeted lipidomics (Liu et al., 2022). Moreover, volatilomics is a branch of metabolomics used to detect, characterize, and quantify volatile metabolites, and, in combination with relative odor activity values (ROAVs), it can be used to determine the critical VOCs in food (Li et al., 2024; Lytou et al., 2019). In addition, volatilomic technology based on headspace–solid‐phase microextraction–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (HS–SPME–GC–MS) is widely used to determine the VOC profiles of meat and its products (Han et al., 2020; Pavlidis et al., 2019).…”