Classifications of cultivars and geographical origins of durians by chemometric analyses of fatty acid compositions

Abstract

Durian, a well-renowned fruit from Southeast Asia, has gained popularity from its unique flavor and texture that vary by cultivar and geographical origin. Hence, methods that can unbiasedly distinguish durians based on these factors are crucial for the sustainability of durian industries. Herein, fatty acid content in durian pulp was investigated for its possible ability in distinguishing durians based on cultivars and origins. The chemical profiles obtained from gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) were analyzed by two chemometric approaches including linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and self-organizing map (SOM). The results showed that the accuracies of all sub-studies were good to excellent, achieving > 94 % accuracy and > 80 % sensitivity in most cases. Notably, SOM complemented well with LDA by providing visual classification and improving sensitivity. Overall, this methodology is an effective tool for durian classification, thanks to the robustness of both chemical data and chemometric tools used.