Abstract
Honey is a natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of flowers, plant secretions or plant-sucking insect excretions. Sugars and water constitute the major components, other minor components characterize the organoleptic and nutritional properties. To date, Salento (Apulia region, Italy) honey production is considerably threatened due to the suggested use of neonicotinoids in order to control the insect-vectored bacterium Xylella fastidiosa (subsp. pauca). Metabolomics based on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to describe, for the first time, the composition of honey samples from different Salento producers. Exploratory Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed, among the observed clustering, a separation between light and dark honeys and a discrimination according to producers, both further analyzed by supervised multivariate analysis. According to the obtained data, although limited to small-scale emerging production, Salento honey shows at the molecular level, a range of specific characteristic features analogous to those exhibited by similar products originating elsewhere and appreciated by consumers. The impact on this production should therefore be carefully considered when suggesting extensive use of pesticides in the area.
Highlights
Honey is a natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of flowers, plant secretions or plant-sucking insect excretions
We present an investigation of combined Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and a chemometric data analysis approach to describe the variability in the composition of honey samples from different local Salento (Lecce and Taranto Provinces, Apulia region, South-East Italy) producers
Several studies used a very limited number of samples for much wider productions and geographic areas, such as the quality and bio-functional properties characterization of seven honey samples of different botanical and geographical origins collected from different regions of Portugal [40]; the 1H-NMR profiling and chemometric analysis of ten selected honeys from South Africa, Slovakia, and Zambia [8]; the chemometric analysis of three stingless bee honey samples from different botanical origins collected in Malaysia [41]; the 1H NMR characterization of twenty Finnish honeys [42]
Summary
Honey is a natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of flowers, plant secretions or plant-sucking insect excretions (honeydew honey). Besides the high nutritive value, minor components are responsible for the healthy properties of honey such as antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and immune system-stimulating activities, as reported in the literature [2,6] Many factors such as geographical, botanical or floral origin, together with climatic and seasonal variations, influence honey chemical composition and quality [7]. The metabolomic approach based on NMR spectroscopy, in combination with chemometrics, is a powerful fingerprinting technique that is successfully employed for biomarker detection, food quality control, and/or origin discrimination [11,21,22,23,24,25,26] This approach is used to analyze metabolite profiles and identify the most important discriminating compounds that differentiate honeys. Several studies proved the NMR-based screening techniques are a suitable tool for the rapid authenticity analysis of honey [19]
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