Volatile compounds of umbu (Spondias tuberosa Arruda) fruits during post-harvest ripening from two accessions

Abstract

The chemical composition of volatile compounds from Spondias tuberosa fruits were investigated at four days of maturity and from two accessions. These days were characterized through the compounds’ profiles obtained by extracting volatiles using solid-phase microextraction in headspace mode (HS-SPME) and analyzed by gas-chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of 27 and 22 compounds were identified from the EPAMIG-C02 and EPAMIG-C10 accessions, respectively. The main chemical class in both accessions were the esters, aldehyde, alcohols and terpenes. The study revealed a tendency to increase the ester content and decrease the aldehyde and terpene content during four days of post-harvest ripening for the two accessions. This behavior may be monitored by five key compounds such as two esters (ethyl butanoate and ethyl hexanoate) and three aldehydes (hex-2-enal, nonanal and dec-2-enal). These compounds may be used as markers for the maturity stage for the two accessions. The Principal Components Analysis (PCA) accumulated 73.85% of the total variance in principal components 1 and 2 and showed that it is possible to differentiate the fruit ripening stages through these compounds.