Food Quality Research Solutions

Food Quality Research

The study of food quality is an important research content in the field of food science. Food quality research includes quality identification, quality improvement, food processing, food storage and other aspects. The research of food quality depends on the means and methods of detection, which directly affect the reliability, stability and accuracy of the detection results.

Application of Metabolomics in Food Quality Research

Metabolomics is the qualitative and quantitative analysis of metabolites in biological samples to explore the corresponding relationships of metabolites in biological samples. Including liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and other techniques. In the field of food quality research, metabonomics method is used to analyze its mechanism. The absolute or relative content of the detected metabolites can be obtained directly. The corresponding relationship between metabolites and key time points in food fermentation process and the determination of food flavor substances were investigated.

Application Direction and Solution

Metabolomics Technology

Full Identification of Metabolites

Untargeted Metabolomics

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of all small molecule metabolites in a biological system is an unbiased metabolomics analysis method. The detection methods mainly include GC-MS and LC-MS.

Global Untargeted Metabolomics

Compared with ordinary untargeted metabolomics, the second generation of untargeted metabolomics has achieved a great improvement in the accuracy as well as detecting substance content.

Untargeted Metabolomics based on solid-phase microextraction technology

Based on the use of fused silica fiber coated with stationary phase to adsorb and enrich the substances in the samples, the method can be applied to the determination of gas and volatile/semi-volatile substances by GC-MS.

Class-Specific Metabolite Detection - Targeted Metabolomics

Carbohydrates, organic acids, tannins, flavonoids, vitamins, fatty acids, amino acids, arachidonic acid...

Food Quality Research Cases

Project Experience

Case Analysis

Rewiring of the Fruit Metabolome in Tomato Breeding

Journal: Cell Impact factor: 38.637 Published date: 2018 Published by: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Research Background

Humans heavily rely on dozens of domesticated plant species that have been further improved through intensive breeding.

Research Design

To evaluate how breeding changed the tomato fruit metabolome, we have generated and analyzed a dataset encompassing genomes, transcriptomes, and metabolomes from hundreds of tomato genotypes.

Research Result

The combined results illustrate how breeding globally altered fruit metabolite content. Selection for alleles of genes associated with larger fruits altered metabolite profiles as a consequence of linkage with nearby genes. Selection of five major loci reduced the accumulation of anti-nutritional steroidal glycoalkaloids in ripened fruits, rendering the fruit more edible. Breeding for pink tomatoes modified the content of over 100 metabolites. The introgression of resistance genes from wild relatives in cultivars also resulted in major and unexpected metabolic changes.

Figure 1 The view of polyomics in tomato breeding

Figure 2 Metabolites and pathways affected by vitamin B12

Figure 3 Generation and integration of multiple sets of data

Conclusion

The study reveals a multi-omics view of the metabolic breeding history of tomato, as well as provides insights into metabolome-assisted breeding and plant biology.

Reference

Zhu Guangtao,Wang Shouchuang,Huang Zejun et al. Rewiring of the Fruit Metabolome in Tomato Breeding.[J] .Cell, 2018, 172: 249-261.e12