Abstract: Purpose: To comparatively analyze the composition of volatile compounds in fresh and thermoprocessed bigeye tuna meat. Methods: Headspace solid-phase microextraction method (HS-SPME) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used for the analysis of volatiles. Results: Totally 36 and 47 volatile compounds were detected from fresh and thermoprocessed bigeye tuna, respectively. Among them, the predominant compounds were aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, and furans, which were together responsible for the specific flavor of bigeye tuna. Aldehydes and alcohols played a major role in fresh bigeye tuna, especially 2,4-pentadiene aldehyde (31.74%) and 1-octene-3-ol (7.8%). However, in thermoprocessed bigeye tuna, aldehydes and furans compounds had the greatest contribution to the flavor with their relative contents of 64.09% and 11.41% respectively. Conclusions: Aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, and furans have an important influence on the flavor of bigeye tuna meat. The flavor of thermoprocessed bigeye tuna meat may come from proteolysis, lipolysis and Maillard reaction.

Key words: headspace-solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), bigeye tuna, volatile compounds