Volatile profiles of flavedo, pulp and seeds in Poncirus trifoliata fruits

BACKGROUND: Poncirus trifoliata, also known as trifoliate orange, is a tree native to China and Korea and widely used all over the world as rootstock breeding material. In the present work we determined the differences among the volatile profiles of flavedo, pulp and seeds from two cultivars (var. trifoliata and var. monstrosa) cultivated in Italy (Marche, Abruzzo and Sicily). Headspace solid-phase microextraction and hydrodistillation techniques were used in combination with GC-FID and GC-MS to obtain the volatile profiles of the samples. RESULTS: Both techniques permitted to differentiate fruit parts based on the main volatile components: flavedo was characterized by monoterpenes hydrocarbons such as limonene and myrcene, seeds from sesquiterpene hydrocarbons such as (E)-caryophyllene and germacrene D, while pulp showed intermediate composition. Main differences in volatile profiles obtained by the two techniques were discussed and analysed by chemometric techniques as principal component analysis. CONCLUSION: The study did not highlight significant differences in volatiles between the two cultivars of trifoliate orange, while little differences in the number of volatiles in the fruit parts were revealed by the two techniques.