Comparison and diversity of phytochemical profiles of Spondias mombin and S. tuberosa using LC-MS and multivariate statistical analysis

The species Spondias mombin and Spondias tuberosa are fruit plants from the family Anacardiaceae, and the fruits of these plants are popularly known as “cajá” and “umbu”, respectively, and are marketed as exotic fruits in Brazil. The promoted marketing of these species in the market is hampered by their genetic variability and a lack of knowledge of techniques for reproduction, harvesting, and conservation. Therefore, active germplasm banks (AGBs) were created by The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) to conserve genetic resources and optimize the use of these species. One of the approaches to the selection of species is metabolomics studies. In this work, using liquid chromatography‒mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, multivariate statistical analysis was used to correlate the metabolomic profiles of the bark, branches, and leaves of S. mombin and S. tuberosa. Thus, the compounds that most influenced the observed groups were identified and indicated as chemical markers of these species. To carry out the dereplication of the metabolomic profiles, a library of chemical structures of the Anacardiaceae family was constructed, which enabled the identification of 40 compounds, 10 of which were at level 1 using the library and reference standards and 30 at level 2 using only the library. The results of the present study showed that the branches and bark contain gallic acid and citric acid as chemical markers, and their profiles are similar between species. In the case of the leaves of S. mombin, the anacardic acid C17:3 and quercetin derivatives were identified as chemical markers, while the leaves of S. tuberosa contained the anacardic acids C17:1, C17:2, and C13 as chemical markers. Meteorological factors had a greater influence on the metabolic profile of the leaves than did genetic variability. In the case of S. mombin leaves, flavonoids are inversely correlated with cloudiness and directly correlated with the temperature at the collection site.