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Differentiation of flue-cured tobacco leaves in different positions based on neutral volatiles with principal component analysis (PCA)

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Abstract

Differentiation of tobacco leaves in different plant stalk positions in China was achieved based on basic chemical compounds and neutral volatiles by principal component analysis (PCA). The continuous flow analysis method was used to determine the quantity of the basic chemical compounds (sugars, total nitrogen and nicotine) of 30 samples. The neutral volatiles of tobaccos were analyzed by GC–MS. It was found that the disparity in basic chemical components was not enough to assess the different quality of tobacco leaves. PCA was used to reveal the differences among these three species based on neutral volatile compounds. Tobacco leaves in different positions were differentiated according to the results of PCA. Four principal components were extracted and altogether accounted for exceeding 80 % of the total variances. The first principal component explained 48.1 % of the total variation and was mainly defined by solanone, megastigmatrienone, 5-methylfurfural, furfuralcohol, phenylethylalcohol and benzylalcohol. The second principal component explained 18.1 % of the total variation and was mainly defined by β-ionone and farnesylacetone. The plots of sample loadings showed that a good differentiation on the basis of concentrations of neutral volatiles was achieved. These results demonstrated that neutral volatiles can be used as the useful variables to characterize the tobacco leaves in different positions.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Scientific Foundation of China National Tobacco Corporation (No. 110200901002). The authors are grateful to R&D Center of Anhui Tobacco (Group) Co, Ltd., China, for providing equipment support. We also thank Chunyan yin and Maoshen Chen for their constructive and valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, 214122, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Weifeng Sun, Zhilei Zhou, Yue Li, Wenshui Xia & Fang Zhong

  2. Research and Development Centre, China Tobacco Anhui Industrial Corporation, 9 Tianda Road, Hefei, 230088, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Zhiqiang Xu

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  1. Weifeng Sun
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  2. Zhilei Zhou
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  3. Yue Li
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  4. Zhiqiang Xu
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  5. Wenshui Xia
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  6. Fang Zhong
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Correspondence to Fang Zhong.

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Sun, W., Zhou, Z., Li, Y. et al. Differentiation of flue-cured tobacco leaves in different positions based on neutral volatiles with principal component analysis (PCA). Eur Food Res Technol 235, 745–752 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-012-1799-3

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