Key Laboratory of Tropical Fruit and Vegetable Cold-chain of Hainan Province / Institute of Agro-products Processing and Design, Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Haikou, Hainan Province, China.
Key Laboratory of Tropical Fruits and Vegetables Quality Safety for State Market Regulation / Hainan Institute for Food Control, Haikou, China.
Plant Foods Hum Nutr. 2022 Jun;77(2):250-257. doi: 10.1007/s11130-022-00973-4. Epub 2022 May 18.
Sugars and acids of wampee predominantly influence consumer taste preference and its commercial value. The molecular basis of taste variations is currently unknown due to the lack of a large-scale investigation of metabolites in wampee. Here, three tastes cultivars, including YF1 (sweet), YF2 (sweet-sour) and YF3 (sour) wampees with sugar-acid ratios ranging from 1.74 to 26.32, were selected. Then, UPLC-MS/MS based widely targeted metabolome analysis was performed to uncover the molecular mechanism underlying these taste variations, followed by the analysis of KEGG pathways. Results showed that 449, 470, 147 metabolites differed between YF1 vs YF2, YF1 vs YF3, and YF2 vs YF3. Fifty of them were screened as common differential metabolites (DMs) by Venn diagram, including 9 phenolic acids. Among them, the abundance level of methyl 3-O-methyl gallate (M3MG) showed a positive correlation with the titratable acids (R = 0.9009) and negative correlation with sugar-acid ratio (R = 0.9802) in three cultivars. Therefore, M3MG could be a taste biomarker for wampees. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis also verified that M3MG played a crucial role in the "biosynthesis of amino acids" pathway. These results above provide important insights into the taste-forming mechanism of wampee and will be beneficial for superior eating quality wampee breeding.
沃柑的糖酸主要影响消费者的口感偏好及其商业价值。由于缺乏对沃柑代谢物的大规模研究，目前尚不清楚口感变化的分子基础。本研究选取了三个口感品种，包括 YF1（甜）、YF2（甜酸）和 YF3（酸），其糖酸比从 1.74 到 26.32 不等。然后，采用基于 UPLC-MS/MS 的广泛靶向代谢组学分析方法，揭示这些口感差异的分子机制，并对 KEGG 途径进行分析。结果表明，YF1 与 YF2、YF1 与 YF3、YF2 与 YF3 之间分别有 449、470 和 147 种代谢物存在差异。通过 Venn 图筛选出 50 种共有差异代谢物（DMs），包括 9 种酚酸。其中，甲基 3-O-甲基没食子酸甲酯（M3MG）的丰度水平与三个品种的可滴定酸呈正相关（R=0.9009），与糖酸比呈负相关（R=0.9802）。因此，M3MG 可能是沃柑的口感标志物。KEGG 途径富集分析也验证了 M3MG 在“氨基酸生物合成”途径中发挥着关键作用。这些结果为沃柑口感形成机制提供了重要的见解，并将有助于培育优质食用品质的沃柑。
