Simultaneous determination of multi-class bioactive constituents for quality assessment of Garcinia species using UHPLC–QqQLIT–MS/MS

• Quantification of 26 bioactive compounds was carried out by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.
• Quantitative variations of bioactive compounds among 11 Garcinia species were studied.
• Multivariate analysis was performed to evaluate the quality of Garcinia species.
• The content of 26 bioactive compounds was significantly varied among 11 Garcinia species.
• The developed method could make a contribution to quality control of Garcinia species.

Plants of genus Garcinia are therapeutically important and widely used in ayurvedic and traditional systems of medicine for the treatment of an array of ailments. In present study, a highly sensitive and efficient analytical method was developed and validated for rapid determination of twenty-six multi-class bioactive constituents in the leaf extracts of eleven Garcinia species using ultra high performance liquid chromatography-hybrid linear ion trap triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UHPLC–QqQLIT–MS/MS). Chromatographic separation was accomplished on an Aquity UPLC BEH C18 column (50 mm × 2.1 mm id, 1.7 μm) using gradient elution of 0.1% formic acid in water and acetonitrile within 7.5 min. Quantitative analysis was carried out by multiple-reaction monitoring mode (MRM) in negative electrospray ionization. The developed method was validated according to International Conference on Harmonization (ICH, Q2R1) guidelines. All standard calibration curves expressed good linear relationship (r2 ≥ 0.9991) over the concentration range of 0.1–300 ng/mL. The precision was assessed by intra- and inter-day study which revealed RSD ≤ 1.93%. The recoveries of quantified compounds were between 95.45 and 104.43% with RSD ≤ 1.89%. This method was successfully applied to investigate quantitative variation among eleven Garcinia species. Moreover, principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) were performed to compare and evaluate the quality of studied Garcinia species based on their quantitative data. The results indicated significant variation among eleven Garcinia species on the basis of twenty-six bioactive constituents. The developed method could be used as a tool for quality control and authenticity establishment of Garcinia species.

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