Enantioselective gas chromatography in flavor and fragrance analysis: strategies for the identification of known and unknown plant volatiles.

This review describes current analytical technology for the analysis of chiral constituents in essential oils and other natural volatiles, flavor and fragrance compounds, and covers some important results achieved by natural compound chemists, food chemists, perfumers, and molecular biologists. The technique of enantioselective gas chromatography (GC) is described and applied for assigning absolute configuration of chiral natural compounds, which is strongly connected to differences in odor properties of their enantiomers. In addition, some recent results to facilitate the handling of GC-mass spectrometry data of known and unknown plant volatiles are discussed.