Abstract: Volatile flavor composition is an important indicator for evaluating the quality of mushroom. The composition and relative contents of volatile flavor compounds in 14 species of the genus Pleurotus were investigated using headspace solid-phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and the contribution of different volatile components to the overall flavor was studied based on their relative odor activity value (ROAV) by principle component analysis. The results showed that a total of 41 flavor compounds belonging to aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, esters, carboxylic acids and furans were identified in 14 Pleurotus species. Eight volatile flavor compounds were common to all 14 species: hexanal, 2-butyl-2-octenal, 1-hexanol, 1-octen-3-ol, 1-octanol, 2-octen-1-ol, 3-octanone and 1-octen-one. In addition, esters were far more abundant than other compound classes in these mushroom species. P. florida PF6 contained 3 principal volatile flavor components including 1-octen-3-one, 1-octen-3-ol and octanal, while only 2 principal components, 1-octene-3-one and 1-octen-3-ol, were found present in other species. Furthermore, principle component analysis carried out on the volatile flavor compounds common to 14 Pleurotus species showed that the first three principal components cumulatively contributed to 83.627% of the total variation and that the main representative components were 1-hexanol, hexanal, 2-butyl-2-octenal, 1-octanol, 2-octen-1-ol, 1-octen-3-one and 3-octanone, which were the key flavor components of Pleurotus mushrooms.

Key words: Pleurotus, volatile flavor compounds, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), headspace solid-phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME), relative odor activity value (ROAV), principal component analysis