Comparative profiling of phenolic compounds from different plant parts of six Terminalia species by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry with chemometric analysis

• Estimation of bioactive compounds in different parts of six Terminalia species.
• A fast, rapid and sensitive UPLC-ESI–MS/MS method was developed.
• Identification and quantification of 37 compounds have been done successfully.
• The results indicated significant variation in the total contents of the 37 compounds in Terminalia species and found most abundant in T. chebula fruit.
• Principal component analysis was carried out to discriminate different Terminalia species.

Terminalia species are extensively used as ethno-medicinal and traditional plants. Phenolic compounds extracted from Terminalia species have been reported to possess several biological activities. This study reports comparative profiling of phenolic constituents in different plant parts of six Terminalia species namely T. arjuna, T. bellerica, T. catappa, T. chebula, T. elliptica and T. paniculata using ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with hybrid triple quadrupole-linear ion trap mass spectrometry (UPLC-QqQLIT-MS/MS). To achieve this target an UPLC-ESI–MS/MS method was developed and validated for the estimation of 37 phenolic compounds. Calibration curves for the selected analytes provided optimum linear detector response (with R2 ≥ 0.9972) over the concentration range of 0.5–1000 ng/mL. The results indicated significant variation in the total contents of the 37 compounds in Terminalia species and found the most abundant in T. chebula fruit. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to compare and evaluate the quality of different plant parts of six Terminalia species based on the contents of the investigated compounds.

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