Abstract:
Objective A method coupling the ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and the triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) was established to simultaneously determine 15 phenolic compounds in purple potatoes.
Method Purple potato specimens were extracted with methanol-water under ultrasound to be separated on a UPLC and analyzed by MS/MS for the phenolic determination. On a Waters T3 C18 column of the UPLC, the extracts was separated by gradient elution with 0.1% (V/V) formic acid-5 mmol·L−1 ammonium acetate aqueous solution and acetonitrile as the mobile phase. The elutes were analyzed using the positive electrospray ionization tandem MS under the multiple reaction monitoring mode.
Result With the optimized conditions and within the concentration range, linearities on the measurements for 15 phenolics with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.995 6 to 0.999 7 were obtained. The methodology had a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.3–5.8 µg·L−1 (S/N≥3) and that of quantitation 1.0–15.2 µg·L−1 (S/N≥10). The average recoveries on the compounds ranged from 73.3% to 97.1% with a relative standard deviation (RSDs) of 1.8%–8.9%.
Conclusion Five categories of phenolic compounds in the concentrations ranging from 0.102 mg·kg−1 to 1 698 490 mg·kg−1 were detected in the purple potato specimens by the method. Among them, chlorogenic acid was the highest in quantity, and coumaric acid the lowest. The newly established methodology was deemed sensitive, rapid, accurate, and suitable for phenolic determination on purple potatoes.