**Author details**

260 Olive Germplasm – The Olive Cultivation, Table Olive and Olive Oil Industry in Italy

this period.76

factors. Aroma components of products of plant origin are dependent on genetic, agronomic, and environmental factors.71 The identification and assay of the terminal species of the "lipoxygenase pathway" which are present in the volatile fraction of olive oils, has been performed by electron impact and/or chemical ionization mass spectrometry in a GC/MS Ion Trap apparatus. The quantitative data for each compound were subjected to principal component analysis to characterize the different cultivars of this work. PCA methodology was applied to confirm the hypothesis that the five selected markers of specific lipoxygenase oxidation could be used to differentiate the various cultivars (Figure 17).72 The same method was applied to distinguish the origin of experimental oils produced from drupes harvested in different areas of Italian Calabria region and of Tunisia. An easy discrimination was achieved from each cluster of samples. Olive oils produced from irrigated and nonirrigated farms in Tunisia were also clearly distinguishable.73 Quality and safety of oil is also associated to the presence of dangerous organic residues such as phthalates (PAEs). These compounds tend to be distributed mostly in fatty foods and this can cause the presence of remarkable amounts of PAEs in olive oil. Their determination in fatty matrices represents,therefore, a very important goal for the consumers' health and confidence. A rapid method for the analysis of phthalates in olive oil by GC-MS/MS after a GPC clean-up has been developed which exploits the capability of tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) for the unequivocal confirmation and accurate quantification of PAEs at low limits of detection (LOD) levels in fatty matrices without the need for a liquidliquid extraction prior to GPC and for SPE clean-up following GPC.74 The interest in the identification of secondary metabolites by MS methods has been extended to different olive tissues. An extensive investigation, by means of high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) has shown that some of these micro components are strongly cultivar dependent, and probably ripening dependent, while others are widespread and present in all the analyzed cultivars.75 The new secoiridoid metabolites found in drupes reveal that the key molecules produced by secondary metabolism of terpenes can be conjugated with hydroxytyrosol, a secondary metabolite of phenol biosynthesis, through the formation of differently structured glucosides. The origin of this new species could be related to transport phenomena which can be different among the various tissues of a given plant. Moreover, more stringent evidence of the biogenetic similarity of the members of different oleaceae families is provided by the discovery of metabolites typical of ligustrum and fraxinus in olive tissues. Secondary metabolites of Olea europaea leaves have been selected as markers for the discrimination of cultivars and cultivation zones by multivariate analysis; moreover, the statistical approach has been exploited to correlated the identity and relative amounts of metabolites in leaves with the harvesting period. The mean values of the concentration of each compound, detected by tandem mass spectrometry were inputted into PCA analysis. The bidimensional plot (Figure 18) shows a shifting along PC1 going from March–April to January which indicates the increase of concentration of compounds on the left of plot and the decrease for methoxytyrosol glucoside and 2-methoxyhydroxytyrosol glucoside. Moreover, position of samples of July at highest score values on PC2 means a decrease of concentration of variables verbascoside and hydroxytyrosol glucoside in leaves harvested in

Giovanni Sindona and Domenico Taverna *University of Calabria, Dept. Chemistry, Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy* 
