Chemometric analysis of amino acid profiles for detection of fruit juice adulterations - Application to verify authenticity of blood orange juice

In this work, fruit juices have been analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to measure whole amino acid profiles for various fruit types. The fruit juice authentication capabilities of whole amino acid profiles employed in various multivariate analysis methods including principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS) analysis have been investigated. PCA of the profiles exhibited a good separation of most fruit types and were validated using quality control samples. Furthermore, these profiles were considered in a blood orange juice versus blond orange juice adulteration study. Applying PLS regression allowed for the detection of similar to 20 percent blond orange juice adulterant added in blood orange juice. The highest regression coefficients were found for glutamic acid and valine, with regards to blood orange juice, and for phenylalanine and glycine, with regards to orange juice. These results suggest that chemometric approaches have great potential for the implementation in food testing.

Automated summary

Fruit juices were analyzed using HPLC to measure whole amino acid profiles, and various multivariate analysis methods were used to investigate the authenticity of fruit juices. The results showed potential for detection of adulteration and implementation of chemometric approaches in food testing.