The key odor-active components differed in cultured agarwood from two germplasms of Aquilaria. sinensis trees

Abstract

To tentatively identify the key odor-active components and compare the odor profiles of cultured agarwood from ordinary and Qi-Nan Aquilaria. sinensis trees, headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography-olfactometry-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC–O–MS) coupled with aroma extraction dilution analysis (AEDA) were used to analyze ordinary(OA)and Qi-Nan agarwood(QNA) compared to non-resinous whitewood. From the 61 odorants found in agarwood, 20 key odor-active components were screened with flavor dilution (FD)≥ 3. Among them, FDs of cis-Eudesm-6-en-11-ol，(E)-isovalencenal and guaiol in OA were higher than those in QNA, which explained for the odor profile of stronger floral and sweet attributes in OA group at ambient temperature. When temperature became higher, low molecular weight aromatic compounds increased greatly and further differed OA and QNA. For the 2-(2-Phenylethyl) chromone derivatives(PECs)in QNA and OA were distinct and consequently pyrolyzed into different aromatic compounds. The results strongly suggested QNA and OA maintained different odor-active components, which lead to their own unique odor profiles.