Quantitative metabolic profiling of grape, apple and raspberry volatile compounds (VOCs) using a GC/MS/MS method

tNowadays the trend in analytical chemistry is clearly towards the creation of multiple methods withextended coverage, enabling the determination of many different classes of compounds in a single anal-ysis in which virtually all classes of different compounds are included in a single run. The aim of thisstudy was to develop and validate a versatile and selective GC/MS/MS method for metabolite profilingof volatile compounds in apples, raspberries and grapes. Validation of the method was performed interms of the limit of detection, limit of quantification, linearity range, and inter and intraday precision.Confirmation of the identity of the compounds in samples was carried out by checking compliance ofthe q/Q ratio of samples and reference standards. The multiple reaction monitoring with selection oftwo transition ions, one for quantification and one for confirmation, provided excellent selectivity andsensitivity, using the q/Q ratio as a confirmatory parameter. A multi target method was developed andvalidated for the simultaneous quantification and confirmation of 160 volatile compounds of raspberries,apples and grapes. The main classes were esters (42), alcohols (32), monoterpenes (31), aldehydes (17),ketones (12), norisoprenoids (8), acids (8), sesquiterpenes (7), pyrazines (3) and ethers (1) allowing thedetection and quantification of 69 compounds in apples, 122 in grapes and 42 in raspberries. Moreover,the method developed can be easily extended to volatile compounds in other fruits and can therefore bewidely used for quantification/profiling studies in the field of fruit aroma.