Abstract
Plants emit characteristic organic volatile compounds (VOCs) with diverse biological/ecological functions. However, the links between plant species/varieties and their phytochemical emission profiles remain elusive. Here, we developed a direct headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) technique and combined with non-targeted gas chromatography‒high-resolution mass spectrometry (GC-HRMS) platform to investigate the VOCs profiles of 12 common Brassicaceae vegetables (watercress, rocket, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kai lan, choy sum, pak choi, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, radish and cherry radish). The direct HS-SPME sampling approach enabled reproducible capture of the rapid-emitting VOCs upon plant tissue disruption. The results revealed extensive variation in VOCs profiles among the 12 Brassicaceae vegetables. Furthermore, principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the VOC profiles could clearly distinguish the 12 Brassicaceae vegetables, and that these profiles well reflected the classical morphological classification. After multivariate statistical analysis, 44 VOCs with significant differences among the Brassicaceae vegetables were identified. Pathway analysis showed that three secondary metabolism pathways, including the fatty acid pathway, methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway and glucosinolate (GLS) pathway, behave distinctively in these vegetables. These three pathways are responsible for the generation and emission of green leaf volatiles (GLVs), terpenes and isothiocyanates (ITCs), respectively. Correlation analysis further showed that volatile metabolites formed via the common pathway had significantly positive correlations, whereas metabolites from different pathways had either non-significant or significantly negative correlations. Genetic influences on these metabolites across various vegetable types were also evaluated. These findings extend our phytochemical knowledge of the 12 edible Brassicaceae vegetables and provide useful information on their secondary metabolism.
Highlights
Plants produce an enormous spectrum of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as secondary metabolites with diverse biological properties and functions
The results showed that these 12 types of vegetables could be grouped according to their morphological taxonomic subfamilies (Figure 1), i.e., Brassica (Brassica oleracea gemmifera, Brassica olearacea italic, Brassica olearacea alboglabra, Brassica rapa parachinensis, Brassica rapa chinensis, Brassica oleracea capitata, Brassica rapa pekinensis and Brassica oleracea botrytis), Raphanus (Raphanus sativus and Raphanus raphanistrum sativus), Nasturitum (Nasturtium officinale) and Eruca (Eruca sativa)
A direct headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) technique combined with non-targeted gas chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (GC-high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS)) metabolomics platform was developed to determine the VOCs profiles in 12 Brassicaceae vegetables
Summary
Plants produce an enormous spectrum of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as secondary metabolites with diverse biological properties and functions. Plant VOCs are low molecular weight metabolites with low boiling point and high vapour pressure at ambient temperature. Plant VOCs are usually categorized into terpenoids, fatty acid derivatives, amino acid derivatives and benzenoid compounds [1]. These volatiles can be emitted from flowers, leaves, fruits, and roots into. Plant VOCs are major determinants of food flavour and aroma, which are of great agronomic importance for food quality [9,10]. Plant VOCs, as a significant part of plant metabolome, are of particular interest to researchers in ecology, agriculture, food quality and safety, and functional food usage
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