Quantitative Proton NMR Spectroscopy for Basic Taste Recombinant Reconstitution Using the Taste Recombinant Database

The quantitative determination of putative taste active metabolites, the ranking of these compounds in their sensory impact based on dose-overthreshold (DoT) factors, followed by confirmation of their relevance by reconstitution and omission experiments enables the decoding of the non-volatile sensometabolome of certain foods. The identification and quantitation of target taste compounds by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet/visible (HPLC-UV/Vis) spectroscopy, or high-performance ion chromatography (HPIC) is often laborious and time-consuming. In this work, we present a novel quantitative H-1 NMR approach for reconstituting basic taste recombinants of different foods, including apple juice, balsamic vinegar, golden chanterelles, process flavor, and shrimp. Compound identification using the taste recombinant database, followed by absolute quantitation via quantitative H-1 NMR (qHNMR), enables a fast and direct reconstitution of basic taste recombinants. The taste profile analysis of basic taste recombinants was generated via qHNMR in less than 15 min and compared with literature data acquired by LC-MS/MS and/or HPLC-UV/Vis and revealed identical results for all taste qualities. A determination of limit of detection (LoD) values for S/N = 50 of various proton signals with different integrals and multiplicities demonstrated that taste recognition thresholds of all basic tastants are far above those of LoD concentrations under the chosen conditions. Therefore, our experimental setup is able to detect basic taste-active compounds well below their taste recognition thresholds.