Metabolomics approach for the discrimination of raw and steamed Gastrodia elata using liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry

• A LC/QTOFMS was applied for metabolite profiling of Gastrodia elata.
• Two method validations were performed for assessment of MS data.
• Multivariate statistical analyses were performed to compare patterns among samples.
• A metabolite selection method suggested key constituents for the discrimination.
• The structures of biomarkers were identified based on various MS information.

A liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry-based metabolomics approach was applied to metabolite profiling of Gastrodia elata in order to identify raw and steamed G. elata and explore potential biomarkers for each processing state. A statistical classification method, significant analysis of microarrays, was used to select influential metabolites from the different forms. Through metabolite selection, several potential biomarkers were determined and assigned by matching mass information with that of reference compounds or by comparing it with data in the literature. Furthermore, the developed method was cross-checked using two validation procedures. The first validation was performed simultaneously with the metabolite profiling of G. elata using all detected metabolites, and the second was performed after the metabolite profiling using representative standard compounds of G. elata. Overall, this study can be applied to quality assurance of G. elata.

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