Assembling an Expanded Metabolome for Camu-Camu (Myrciaria Dubia): Bioactive and Nutritional Compounds Relevant to Functional Food Research
Camu-camu (Myrciaria dubia) is an Amazonian shrub associated with riverine ecosystems and is recognized for its high vitamin C content and a broad range of nutritional and specialized metabolites. Previous studies have focused on specific metabolites or bioactive metabolites associated with health issues. Therefore, a comprehensive metabolomic survey using multiple analytical methods islacking. To address this gap in the scientific literature, we prepared a focused metabolomic inventory by integrating curated literature records with proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) observations from berry materials, including pulp, skin/peel, and seeds. Ourstudy added 107 metabolite annotation records that were not in the literature. The integration of the literature-derived and ourdatasets yielded a combined inventory of 260 metabolites. Seven solvents were compared using 1H NMR spectroscopy, and CH3OH:CD3OD (9:1, v/v) provided the broadest assigned coverage. LC-MS expanded the detection of lower-abundance and structurally diverse features, particularly phospholipids, quaternary ammonium compounds, organic acids, amino acid derivatives, and related metabolites. Compound-level and class-level assignments were distinguished, and interpretations were limited to the confidence supported by the available analytical evidence. The resulting inventory provides an expanded foundation for camu-camu quality evaluation, solvent selection, clinical trials, and targeted functional food research.
Authors
- A Thirugnanasambandam (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7948-2257)
- Varathan Vinayagam
- Steven G. Newmaster (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8707-7769)
- Subramanyam Ragupathy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5181-005X)
- Velautham Saravanan
Institutions
- University of Guelph (CA)
- Canadian Light Source (Canada) (CA)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Molecules
- Published
- 2026-09-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules31183167
- Primary Topic
- Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00