Volatile Metabolite Profiling of Wheat Kernels Contaminated by .

Traditional methods used to detect fungi or mycotoxins are time-consuming and prevent real-time monitoring. In this study, solid-phase microextraction combined with full two-dimensional gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry was utilized to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by fungi during grain infestation predictive PH-1 infestation in wheat. The results show that the VOCs emitted by can distinguish strains at different growth stages. The growth matrices (potato dextrose agar medium and wheat kernels) play a large role in VOC production. The infection of wheat sample showed that a specific relationship between VOCs and the composition of fungal flora, for example, 5-pentyl-cyclohexa-1,3-diene, 3-hexanone, and 1,3-octadiene, was positively correlated with the infection rate of PH-1. In the correlation study of fungal mycotoxins and VOCs, zearalenone produced by was predicted based on the VOCs released. Further analysis determined the correlation of three VOCs, 6-butyl-1,4-cycloheptadiene, hexahydro-3-methylenebenzofuran-2(3)-one, and (,)-3,5-octadien-2-one, with zearalenone production, confirming the ability of VOCs as characteristic markers of mycotoxins.