Comparative Metabolite Profiling of Traditional and Commercial Vinegars in Korea.

Minhye Shin,Soo-Rin Kim,Jeong-Won Kim,Bonbin Gu,Hojin Kim,Mee-Ryung Lee,Sooah Kim,Won-Chan Kim

doi:10.3390/metabo11080478

Minhye Shin, Soo-Rin Kim + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo11080478

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Abstract

Vinegar, composed of various organic acids, amino acids, and volatile compounds, has been newly recognized as a functional food with health benefits. Vinegar is produced through alcoholic fermentation of various raw materials followed by acetic acid fermentation, and detailed processes greatly vary between different vinegar products. This study performed metabolite profiling of various vinegar products using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry to identify metabolites that are specific to vinegar production processes. In particular, seven traditional vinegars that underwent spontaneous and slow alcoholic and acetic acid fermentations were compared to four commercial vinegars that were produced through fast acetic acid fermentation using distilled ethanol. A total of 102 volatile and 78 nonvolatile compounds were detected, and the principal component analysis of metabolites clearly distinguished between the traditional and commercial vinegars. Ten metabolites were identified as specific or significantly different compounds depending on vinegar production processes, most of which had originated from complex microbial metabolism during traditional vinegar fermentation. These process-specific compounds of vinegars may serve as potential biomarkers for fermentation process controls as well as authenticity and quality evaluation.

Highlights

Vinegar is currently recognized as a functional food due to its potential health benefits, including antioxidant [1], antidiabetic [2], cholesterol-lowering [3], weight-reducing [4], and immune-boosting [5] activities
The variable importance in projection (VIP) scores of the metabolites were positively correlated with the −Log (p-value) for the volatile and nonvolatile compounds (Figure 1B,D); the correlation was stronger for the volatile compounds
The comparison of traditional vinegar (TV) and commercial vinegar (CV) for their non-volatile and volatile compounds was conducted for the first time in this study, some recent studies have pointed out that aroma profiles of vinegars are critically changed by different fermentation processes as well as raw materials [9,19]

Summary

Introduction

Vinegar is currently recognized as a functional food due to its potential health benefits, including antioxidant [1], antidiabetic [2], cholesterol-lowering [3], weight-reducing [4], and immune-boosting [5] activities. Recent metabolomic analysis of traditional vinegars suggested that vinegar fermentation processes alter vinegar compounds and possibly their functional properties [7,8,9,10,11,12]. Traditional vinegar is produced by two consecutive fermentation processes: alcoholic fermentation and acetic acid fermentation. Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) converts fermentable sugars in the raw materials into ethanol. Traditional vinegar fermentation is often performed spontaneously by indigenous microorganisms, leading to a slow and complex fermentation process [14]. Most of the commercially available vinegars are produced by fast acetic acid fermentation of distilled ethanol by a starter culture (the mother of vinegar) [15]

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