Comparative metabolomics in vanilla pod and vanilla bean revealing the biosynthesis of vanillin during the curing process of vanilla

Abstract

High-performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) was used for comprehensive metabolomic fingerprinting of vanilla fruits prepared from the curing process. In this study, the metabolic changes of vanilla pods and vanilla beans were characterized using MS-based metabolomics to elucidate the biosynthesis of vanillin. The vanilla pods were significantly different from vanilla beans. Seven pathways of vanillin biosynthesis were constructed, namely, glucovanillin, glucose, cresol, capsaicin, vanillyl alcohol, tyrosine, and phenylalanine pathways. Investigations demonstrated that glucose, cresol, capsaicin, and vanillyl alcohol pathway were detected in a wide range of distribution in microbial metabolism. Thus, microorganisms might have participated in vanillin biosynthesis during vanilla curing. Furthermore, the ion strength of glucovanillin was stable, which indicated that glucovanillin only participated in the vanillin biosynthesis during the curing of vanilla.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13568-017-0413-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Distinct Roles for Bacterial and Fungal Communities During the Curing of Vanilla

“…Vanilla beans were collected in Hainan, China, and cured by hot air processing (Gu et al, 2017). Fresh beans were blanched (70°C, 5 min), after that, they were immediately obtained as B1 samples.…”

Effect of endogenous and exogenous enzymatic treatment of green vanilla beans on extraction of vanillin and main aromatic compounds

“…These results could explain the low yield of vanillin extracted with the artisanal method where warm temperatures are commonly used. Gradual loss of b-glucosidase activity has been reported in other studies as one of the most significant problems in the vanilla industry because this enzyme is responsible for glucovanillin hydrolysis and vanillin release (Dignum et al 2002;Waliszewski et al 2009;Gu et al 2017). Vanillin concentration is a main factor of the quality of the vanilla extracts; single fold vanilla (containing 0.1-0.2% vanillin) is considered the reference of minimum quality (Gallage and Møller, 2015).…”

Analytical contribution of deuterium 2D‐NMR in oriented media to 2H/1H isotopic characterization: the case of vanillin

“…It could also be used to discern between natural and synthetic vanillin. Other techniques were used to obtain partly position‐specific information, mainly by mass spectrometry, for fighting against the false labelling of natural vanillin products and distinguishing Vanilla from vanillin made by biotechnological processes …”

“…Other techniques were used to obtain partly position-specific information, mainly by mass spectrometry, for fighting against the false labelling of natural vanillin products and distinguishing Vanilla from vanillin made by biotechnological processes. [12][13][14][15] Nevertheless, although very efficient in many cases, isotropic irm-2 H 1D-NMR has certain limitations associated with the properties of the compound under investigation and with the analytical principles of liquid-state NMR. Among these, we note the following important factors.…”