Metabolomics for Evaluating Flavor-Associated Metabolites in Plant-Based Products

Abstract

Plant-based diets (PBDs) are associated with environmental benefits, human health promotion and animal welfare. There is a worldwide shift towards PBDs, evident from the increased global demand for fresh plant-based products (PBPs). Such shifts in dietary preferences accompanied by evolving food palates, create opportunities to leverage technological advancements and strict quality controls in developing PBPs that can drive consumer acceptance. Flavor, color and texture are important sensory attributes of a food product and, have the largest influence on consumer appeal and acceptance. Among these, flavor is considered the most dominating quality attribute that significantly affects overall eating experience. Current state-of-art technologies rely on physicochemical estimations and sensory-based tests to assess flavor-related attributes in fresh PBPs. However, these methodologies often do not provide any indication about the metabolic features associated with unique flavor profiles and, consequently, can be used in a limited way to define the quality attributes of PBPs. To this end, a systematic understanding of metabolites that contribute to the flavor profiles of PBPs is warranted to complement the existing methodologies. This review will discuss the use of metabolomics for evaluating flavor-associated metabolites in fresh PBPs at post-harvest stage, alongside its applications for quality assessment and grading. We will summarize the current research in this area, discuss technical challenges and considerations pertaining to sampling and analytical techniques, as well as s provide future perspectives and directions for government organizations, industries and other stakeholders associated with the quality assessment of fresh PBPs.

Comparing the Flavor Characteristics of 71 Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) Accessions in Central Shaanxi

“…The development of GC-O-MS has led to the identification of thousands of volatiles ( El Hadi et al, 2013 ; Pott et al, 2019 ), and numerous odor characteristics are distinguishable by the developed human sense of olfactory ( Pavagadhi and Swarup, 2020 ). Only a few dozen volatiles contribute substantially to flavor and only when their concentrations exceed the olfactory threshold ( Czerny et al, 2008 ).…”

“…Sugar and acid are considered to be the basic compounds for fruit flavor formation ( Baldwin et al, 2008 ; Bastias et al, 2011 ), while the volatiles form the characteristic flavor compounds of different fruits ( Baldwin et al, 2008 ; Du et al, 2015 ). Therefore, it is not scientifically valid to judge tomato flavor on taste alone; instead, taste and odor should both be assessed to comprehensively evaluate the flavor ( Pavagadhi and Swarup, 2020 ). The results of the DTOPSIS evaluation in the present study indicated that tomato accessions with a preferred (i.e., “better”) flavor either scored high in the taste evaluation or had a strong odor.…”

Small in size, big on taste: metabolomics analysis of flavor compounds from Philippine garlic

“…These dipeptides contribute to flavors derived enzymatically in Allium species [34]. The presence of these compounds at relatively higher levels in authenticated samples could potentially explain the stronger sensory impression when compared to other cultivars [3,29]. Figure 4B).…”

“…Some key metabolite features annotated here through molecular networking appeared to be dependent on sampling location ( Figs 1B and 1C). Moreover, the relative abundances of metabolites associated with flavor and aroma could account for the difference in taste and smell between samples [29]. To provide an unbiased (i.e.…”

“…Based on the insights obtained from exploring authenticated and local market samples, a comparison between native and imported garlic (Figure 5A) showed a clear separation across PC1 and PC2. Clustering among native samples is primarily due to higher levels of γ-Glu dipeptides and amino acids, which may be responsible for the enhanced taste and aroma of Philippine garlic[3,29]. Interestingly, some local biological replicates from San Jose (OMSJ) clustered with imported ZAM and IMPSB, which may imply that OMSB outliers have features in common with ZAM and IMSB that have a greater loadings weight.…”