Determination of Plant Growth Regulators in Vegetable by High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry Coupled with Isotop-coded Derivatization

A method for determination of 6 plant growth regulators by high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) coupled with isotope-coded derivatization was developed. d0-10-Methyl-acridone-2-sulfonyl piperazine (d0-MASPz, light form) and d3-10-methyl-acridone-2-sulfonyl piperazine (d3-MASPz, heavy form) were prepared as isotope-coded derivatization reagents for carboxyl compound. The carboxylic plant growth regulator standards and real samples were derivatized by d0-MASPz and d3-MASPz, respectively. The obtained solutions were mixed at a certain ratio, and then injected for HPLC-MS/MS analysis. The light and heavy derivatives were monitored with transitions of [M + H]+→m/z 208.2 and [M + H]+→m/z 211.2, respectively. With heavy derivative as internal standard for corresponding light derivative, the global isotope internal standard quantification for 6 plant growth regulators was achieved. The results indicated that the proposed isotope-coded derivatization method could provide relative quantitative data with adequate linearity in a 10-fold dynamic range (R = 0.9991). The detection and quantitation limits were 0.19–0.34 μM and 0.53–0.96 μM, respectively. The relative standard deviations were ≤ 3.8%, and the accuracies ranged from 97. 5% to 103.8%.

Graphical AbstractA method for determination of carboxylic plant growth regulators by isotope-coded derivatization and LC-MS/MS was developed and validated. This figure suggested that the proposed global isotope internal standard quantification method was accurate and reliable. This method was also successfully applied to detect plant growth regulators in cucumber and tomato samples.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide