Abstract: Based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), metabolomic analysis was conducted on rice seeds from the rice-producing area of Jiansanjiang and other areas in Heilongjiang province with the aim of evaluating the effect of the geographical origin on rice metabolites. The XCMS software package was used to process the GC-MS data under the R software platform. Multivariate statistical analysis using principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares-discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) and orthogonal projection to latent structures discriminate analysis (OPLS-DA) was performed with SIMCA-P software. The results indicated that a total of 173 peaks were detected, and that 44 compounds, including amino acids, fatty acids, saccharide, and polyols, were identified. A total of 23 differential metabolites with significant changes (P < 0.05, VIP ≥ 1) were identified between rice seeds from Jiansanjiang and other areas in Heilongjiang province. The analysis of metabolic pathways showed that amino acid metabolism affected rice quality and varied with the geographical origin. Our data showed that the geographical origin affected both the types and amounts of metabolites in rice. There was a significant difference in the metabolomes of rice from Jiansanjiang and other producing areas. It is feasible to use GC-MS to analyze the effects of the geographical origin on the metabolites of rice seeds and to distinguish between different geographical origins.

Key words: gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), rice, geographical origin, metabolomics