Andrea Gianotti Andrea Gianotti (PhD) Department of Agricultural and Food Science Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna
Metabolomics was recently applied in food science for monitoring the quality, processing, safety, and microbiology of both raw materials and final products to improve the consumer's health and confidence. Specifically, the study of metabolite profile in fermented foods was applied to record metabolite modifications during fermentation and the possibility to predict, among others, the sensory and nutritional quality of the fermented final product.
The metabolomics application to fermented products will be focused: i) to characterize volatile metabolites by gas chromatography (GC–MS) and electronic nose in real sourdough; ii) to discriminate chemically acidified fermented dough mimicking sourdough fermentation; iii) to exploit different L. plantarum strains to improve sensorial and functional properties of cereal-fermented foods.
GC-MS discriminated the fermentation type and cereal source due to its ability to detect specific patterns of alcohols, ketones, aldehydes and carboxylic acids. The chemical acidification induced changes allowing GC-MS to discriminate the cereal source basing on 1-octen-3-ol, 2-methyl-propanol and 1-hexanol. On the other hand e-nose sensors revealed the different formulations and sourdough process. Finally, the effect of L. plantarum fermentation on sensorial and healthy compounds was significant in wheat flours. However KAMUT® khorasan wheat represents itself a highly specific source of volatile and phenolic compounds. Finally it was used metabolomics to correlate, in fermented cereals, specific groups of volatile molecules to antioxidant activity and polyphenols assays. Metabolomics may represent an important information tool suitable to support a rapid selection or prediction of strain/substrate combination to simultaneously increase sensorial and healthy characteristics of cereal-fermented foods.