ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Food Chemistry
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1650764
This article is part of the Research TopicApplications of metabolomics in the formation of food flavorView all 9 articles
Metabolomics analysis reveals the bitter active ingredients in Lonicera caerulea L
Provisionally accepted
Ling Zhu1,2Xindi Zhang1,2
Yaxi Han1,2Kunlun Wang1,2Xinmiao Yao1,2Ye Zhou1,2Bo Li1,2Nina Ji3Shuwen Lu2
Lijun Guan1,2*- 1Institute of Food Processing Research, Heilongjiang Province Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin, China
- 2Heilongjiang Province Key Laboratory of Food Processing, Harbin, China
- 3Institute of Soya Research, Heilongjiang Province Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin, China
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Blue honeysuckle (Lonicera caerulea L.) is a nutritionally valuable cold-climate berry characterized by a considerable bitter taste. The bitter compounds in plant foods are generally recognized to possess favorable physiological activities. This study integrated sensory evaluation, electronic tongue analysis, and untargeted metabolomics based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) to identify the bitter compounds in three different varieties of blue honeysuckle. A total of 73 bitter metabolites were identified in blue honeysuckle, predominantly flavonoids, amino acids and derivatives, phenolic acids, lipids, and tannins as revealed by metabolomic analysis. The highest-bitterness variety, Chaoxian (CX) exhibited specific accumulation of L-valine, L-leucine, L-histidine, L-phenylalanine, eriodictyol, trifolin, isoorientin, naringin, and eriocitrin compared to Luohuotan (LHT) and Lanjingling (LJL). The KEGG enrichment analysis implicated the biosynthesis of amino acids (ko01230) and flavonoid biosynthesis (ko00941) as primary contributors to inter-varietal bitterness divergence. These findings provide important information for retaining bioactive bitter metabolites in blue honeysuckle and optimizing its flavor profile to enhance market acceptability.
Keywords: Blue honeysuckle, Sensory evaluation, ELECTRONIC TONGUE, bitterness, Metabolomics
Received: 20 Jun 2025; Accepted: 05 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhu, Zhang, Han, Wang, Yao, Zhou, Li, Ji, Lu and Guan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lijun Guan, Heilongjiang Province Key Laboratory of Food Processing, Harbin, China
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