Chemistry Institute, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, GO, 74690-900, Brazil.
School of Agronomy, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, GO, 74690-900, Brazil.
Anal Bioanal Chem. 2020 Sep;412(22):5389-5396. doi: 10.1007/s00216-020-02755-w. Epub 2020 Jun 18.
A method named imprint paper spray ionization mass spectrometry (imprint-PSI-MS) has been developed and employed for the determination of pungency of peppers. A pepper fruit was cut into a triangular shape, deposited onto a triangular paper, and compressed by a homemade press tool aiming to imprint and transfer the pepper constituents onto the paper surface. Subsequently, the triangular paper was submitted to conventional PSI-MS analysis. Twelve peppers were analyzed, ranging from highly pungent to lowly pungent taste. Pepper pungency values from the Scoville scale (in Scoville heat units, SHU) were compared with the ion intensities of the capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin compounds obtained from the imprint-PSI-MS analysis, and a correlation coefficient of 0.97 was achieved. In addition, the ion intensities of a sugar compound were monitored in all peppers, and the results were compared with the Scoville scale. Low sugar ion intensities were detected in pungent peppers, while high ion intensities were achieved in low-pungent peppers, suggesting that the pepper pungency may be determined by inversely relating pungency to sugar contents. This work demonstrates the utility of the imprint-PSI-MS method to perform rapid qualitative analyses of peppers and estimate the pungency by monitoring the pepper metabolites. Graphical abstract.
一种名为印迹纸喷雾电离质谱（imprint-PSI-MS）的方法已经被开发出来，并用于测定辣椒的辣度。将一个辣椒果实切成三角形，放在三角形的纸上，然后用自制的压具进行压缩，旨在将辣椒成分印迹并转移到纸的表面。随后，将三角形的纸进行常规的 PSI-MS 分析。分析了 12 个从极辣到微辣的辣椒。从史高维尔辣度（史高维尔热单位，SHU）获得的辣椒素和二氢辣椒素化合物的离子强度与印迹-PSI-MS 分析得到的辣度值进行了比较，相关系数为 0.97。此外，还监测了所有辣椒中的一种糖化合物的离子强度，并与史高维尔辣度进行了比较。在辣的辣椒中检测到低糖离子强度，而在微辣的辣椒中则达到高离子强度，这表明辣椒的辣度可以通过与糖含量相反的关系来确定。这项工作证明了印迹 PSI-MS 方法在快速定性分析辣椒和通过监测辣椒代谢物来估计辣度方面的实用性。
