Metabolomic Analysis Reveals Nutritional Diversity among Three Staple Crops and Three Fruits.

Yunxia Shi,Xianqing Liu,Mingyang Li,Yanxiu Guo,Jie Luo,Yuhui Wang,Chuanying Fang,Kang Li

doi:10.3390/foods11040550

Abstract

More than 2 billion people worldwide are under threat of nutritional deficiency. Thus, an in-depth comprehension of the nutritional composition of staple crops and popular fruits is essential for health. Herein, we performed LC-MS-based non-targeted and targeted metabolome analyses with crops (including wheat, rice, and corn) and fruits (including grape, banana, and mango). We detected a total of 2631 compounds by using non-targeted strategy and identified more than 260 nutrients. Our work discovered species-dependent accumulation of common present nutrients in crops and fruits. Although rice and wheat lack vitamins and amino acids, sweet corn was rich in most amino acids and vitamins. Among the three fruits, mango had more vitamins and amino acids than grape and banana. Grape and banana provided sufficient 5-methyltetrahydrofolate and vitamin B6, respectively. Moreover, rice and grape had a high content of flavonoids. In addition, the three crops contained more lipids than fruits. Furthermore, we also identified species-specific metabolites. The crops yielded 11 specific metabolites, including flavonoids, lipids, and others. Meanwhile, most fruit-specific nutrients were flavonoids. Our work discovered the complementary pattern of essential nutrients in crops and fruits, which provides metabolomic evidence for a healthy diet.

Highlights

A healthy diet containing enough nutrients is vital to health
We performed a principal component analysis (PCA) of all samples based on the liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) data
PCA diagram showed that principal component (PC) 1 and 2 explained 32.17% and 21.9% variability, respectively (Figure 1b)

Summary

Introduction

A healthy diet containing enough nutrients is vital to health. The lack of macro- and micro-nutrients in diets threatens health [1], especially in underdeveloped countries where people cannot afford varied diets [2,3]. Wheat, and corn are globally major staple crops. They provide 60% of the world’s calorie intake [4], the micro-nutrients available from staple foods are limited. Corn lacks tryptophan and lysine, two essential amino acids for humans [5]. The processing of rice and wheat removes bran and embryo, which leads to the loss of most nutrients [6,7]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion