HTC-15

HTC-15 - Abstract

Abstract Title: Monitoring the effect of post-harvest storage on fruit quality by TD-GC×GC-TOF MS
Abstract Type: Seminar
Session Choice: Comprehensive Chromatography - The State of the Art
Presenter Name: Dr Natasha D. Spadafora
Co-authors:Dr Laura McGregor
Dr Antonella Muto
Dr Nick Bukowski
Dr Maria B. Bitonti
Company/Organisation: University of Calabria/Markes International
Country: United Kingdom

Abstract Information :

The fruit quality (FRUITY) project aims to provide a better understanding of post-harvest storage conditions of fruit, to allow improved sensorial and internal quality of fruit throughout the supply chain.

The project uses a multi-trait approach - including sensory profiling, monitoring of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by the fruit and investigation of biochemical reactions - with the overall goal of providing a suite of simple diagnostic checks to monitor fruit quality.

In this presentation, we will focus on the VOC bouquets from peach cultivars in an attempt to identify molecular markers for objective quality assessment.

Thermal desorption (TD) enables rapid and robust in-situ sampling of VOCs, on to sorbent tubes that can be subsequently capped for safe transport to the laboratory for analysis. Here, we use comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GCxGC-TOF MS) to provide enhanced separation of these complex samples. The pre-concentration effect of TD, combined with improved separation and highly-sensitive detection by GCxGC-TOF MS provides a comprehensive chemical fingerprint in a single analytical run.

The VOC profiles at the time of harvest and after storage at low temperature will be compared and correlated with results from sensory evaluation.