Comparison of Spondias tuberosa Arruda accessions by fruit volatile compounds using multivariate analysis

Abstract

In this study, the volatile organic compounds from Spondias tuberosa fruits of 16 accessions with different origins were extracted by solid-phase microextraction in headspace mode (HS-SPME) and analyzed by gas-chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The volatile compounds present in the fruit from the 16 accessions were identified and submitted to multivariate analysis, with the main volatile compounds identified (from a total of 25) being: ethyl butanoate, α-pinene, myrcene/ethyl caproate, limonene, ocimene isomers, linalool/nonanal and p-menth-1-en-4-ol. The major chemical classes were terpenes (about 7-72%) and esters (about 14-72%). The relative chromatographic areas of the volatile compounds were used in Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA), which accumulated 67.69% of the explained variance. The compounds classified as esters and terpenes were the main compounds responsible for forming distinct groups. The PC1 and PC2 enabled distinguishing the percentage of compounds responsible for grouping in the PCA quadrants and the HCA shows the grouping of these compounds.