Applications of interest in the field of food metabolomics

Abstract

The emergence of Food Metabolomics has opened up new frontiers and possibilities forscientists to dig deeper into the food composition. Qualitative and quantitative determinations offood metabolome offer insights into the content of the food analytes and details about someother valuable additional features (quality, authenticity, safety, health benefits…). This had for along time seemed technically challenging and almost impossible, but can now be done thanksto the advent of sophisticated analytical techniques and the application of powerful chemometrictools. Moreover, methodologies capable of monitoring compounds from different chemicalclasses in a single run, are being developed in an attempt to broaden the coverage of methodswhile reducing the time and cost of analysis.This contribution will pay attention to applications of interest related to the determinationof relevant minor compounds from olive derived matrices and avocado (pulp and other avocadotissues). Both targeted and non-targeted profiling approaches, along with fingerprinting methodsinvolving the use of powerful chromatographic methods coupled to MS techniques have beenapplied to the evaluation of endogenous metabolites from olive- or avocado-derived matrices inmetabolomic studies.Regardless of the food or plant matrix, the applications of Food Metabolomics could beclassified into six main areas, although it is admittedly difficult to include all possible applicationsin these categories: (a) characterization studies, (b) food safety, quality and authentication(mainly assurance of botanical or geographical origin), (c) agro-technological and industrialresearch (study of the influence of applying different agro-technological parameters on the finalcomposition of the food), (d) evaluation of the results of breeding programmes at metabolic leveland selection of specific varieties to be included in them; (e) valorization of different byproducts,and (f) health and nutrition investigations.This lecture will describe selected applications in two of the areas in which we haveworked the most during the last years, trying to cover different analytical tools andMetabolomics approaches and examples belonging to several of the mentioned categories. Thecontribution will logically conclude by defining key messages and identifying the main analyticalchallenges, future trends and needs in the olive and avocado sectors.