Chemometric discrimination of genetically modified Coffea arabica cultivars using spectroscopic and chromatographic fingerprints

Multivariate statistical design and principal component analysis (PCA) applied to RP-HPLC-DAD and FTIR spectroscopic data were performed to investigate the fingerprints of four coffee cultivars, traditional red bourbon and three genetically modified cultivars. The design and response surface results showed that extraction dependence on solvent composition of one of the genetically modified cultivars, IAPAR 59, was very similar to that found for the red bourbon standard. PCA of the FTIR spectra obtained from all the simplex centroid design mixtures indicated that the 1:1 binary ethanol–dichloromethane solution resulted in the best separation of the four cultivars. The IPR 108 cultivar has more intense vibrational bands in the 3200–3600cm−1 and 1100–1600cm−1 regions indicating higher acid and fat levels than those of the other cultivars. The UV absorptions close to 275nm of the RP-HPLC-DAD spectra are correlated with the strengths of the infrared absorptions between 3400 and 3460cm−1 and can be explained by varying caffeine concentrations in the four cultivars. ► Statistical mixture designs were used to extract material from coffee. ► A chemometric method was developed to differentiate genetically modified Coffea arabica cultivars. ► Chromatographic and spectroscopic fingerprints of four cultivars of Coffea arabica were obtained.