Influence of olive (cv Grignano) fruit ripening and oil extraction under different nitrogen regimes on volatile organic compound emissions studied by PTR-MS technique

Volatile organic compounds of extra virgin olive oils obtained from the local Italian cultivar Grignano were measured by proton transfer reaction–mass spectrometry (PTR-MS). Oils were extracted by olives harvested at different ripening stages across veraison, performing each extraction step and the whole extraction process in nitrogen atmosphere to observe the changes in the volatile profiles of the oils. Principal component analysis carried out on the full spectral signature of the PTR-MS measurements showed that the stage of ripening has a stronger effect on the global definition of volatile profiles than the use of nitrogen during oil extraction. The fingerprint-like chemical information provided by the spectra were used to construct a heat map, which allowed the dynamical representation of the multivariate nature of mass evolution during the ripening process. This provided the first evidence that some groups of volatile organic compounds displayed a time course of regulation with coordinated increasing or decreasing trends in association with specific stages of fruit ripening.