In the last decade, the consumption trend of organic food has increased dramatically worldwide. However, the lack of reliable chemical markers to discriminate between organic and conventional products makes this market susceptible to food fraud in products labeled as “organic”. Metabolomic fingerprinting approach has been demonstrated as the best option for a full characterization of metabolome occurring in plants, since their pattern may reflect the impact of both endogenous and exogenous factors. In the present study, advanced technologies based on high performance liquid chromatography-high-resolution accurate mass spectrometry (HPLC-HRAMS) has been used for marker search in organic and conventional tomatoes grown in greenhouse under controlled agronomic conditions. The screening of unknown compounds comprised the retrospective analysis of all tomato samples throughout the studied period and data processing using databases (mzCloud, ChemSpider and PubChem). In addition, stable nitrogen isotope analysis (δ¹⁵N) was assessed as a possible indicator to support discrimination between both production systems using crop/fertilizer correlations. Pesticide residue analyses were also applied as a well-established way to evaluate the organic production. Finally, the evaluation by combined chemometric analysis of high-resolution accurate mass spectrometry (HRAMS) and δ¹⁵N data provided a robust classification model in accordance with the agricultural practices. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed a sample clustering according to farming systems and significant differences in the sample profile was observed for six bioactive components (L-tyrosyl-L-isoleucyl-L-threonyl-L-threonine, trilobatin, phloridzin, tomatine, phloretin and echinenone).

在过去的十年中，有机食品的消费趋势在世界范围内急剧增加。但是，缺乏可靠的化学标记物来区分有机产品和常规产品，使得该市场容易受到食品标签中“有机”食品欺诈的影响。代谢组学指纹法已被证明是对植物中发生的代谢组进行全面表征的最佳选择，因为其模式可能反映内源性和外源性因素的影响。在本研究中，基于高效液相色谱-高分辨率精确质谱（HPLC-HRAMS）的先进技术已用于在受控农艺条件下温室中种植的有机和常规番茄中进行标记搜索。未知化合物的筛选包括在整个研究期间对所有番茄样品进行回顾性分析，并使用数据库（mzCloud，ChemSpider和PubChem）进行数据处理。此外，稳定的氮同位素分析（δ¹⁵ N）被评估为可能的指标，以支持使用作物/肥料相关性在两个生产系统之间进行区分。农药残留分析也被用作评估有机生产的公认方法。最后，通过高分辨率精确质谱（HRAMS）和δ的结合化学计量分析评价¹⁵的N个数据，根据农业实践提供了一种稳健的分类模型。主成分分析（PCA）显示根据农作系统的样品聚类，并且观察到六个生物活性成分（L-酪氨酰-L-异亮氨酰-L-苏氨酰-L-苏氨酸，三叶草苷，菲洛津，番茄碱，促性腺激素和海胆烯酮）。