A practical method based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry combined with chemometrics for the identification of Moutai liquor

The cases of fake Moutai-flavour liquor have occurred frequently, seriously disrupting market economic order, therefore it is of great significance to realise the Moutai-flavour liquor identification. Herein, an approach based on GC-MS technology coupled with chemometrics was established to achieve products identification and origins traceability. The normalised metabolite data were analysed by PCA, OPLS-DA and volcano plot to screen differential metabolites. The heatmap visualisation and boxplot were used to explore the correlation between chemical markers and liquor samples. PLS-DA model realised the accurate classification of Moutai-flavour liquor samples using the screened chemical markers. All Moutai-flavour liquor samples of the prediction set were accurately differentiated with 100% accuracy during the external verification. This study indicated that an approach based on GC-MS coupled with chemometrics has great potential for products identification and source tracing, thus providing technical support for combating crime of fake Moutai-flavour liquor. The Moutai-flavour liquor samples were investigated by GC-MS approach combining with chemometrics analysis. A total of 29 differential metabolites were screened by PCA, OPLS-DA and volcano plot. Then, PLS-DA model realised the accurate classification of liquor samples, and heatmap elucidate the correlation between differential metabolites and liquor samples. image