Screening of Polycyclic Polyprenylated Acylphloroglucinols from Garcinia Species Using Precursor Ion Discovery (PID) Scan and Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography Electrospray Ionization Q-TOF Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A strategy was newly developed to rapidly screen polycyclic polyprenylated acyl-phloroglucinols (PPAPs) from the plant matrices of nine Garcinia species using ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with comprehensive mass spectrometric approaches including precursor ion discovery (PID) and tandem mass (MS/MS) scans. The PPAPs share the same diagnostic product ion at m/z 177.02 in positive MS/MS scan, which may be increased as the base peak by ramping the cone voltage from 45 to 100 V. With this ramping cone voltage PID scan, it is feasible to selectively screen the PPAPs from 29 samples of nine Garcinia species. This approach has proven to be a powerful, highly selective, and sensitive tool for rapid screening and detection of nontargeted components in natural products before the purification and structural elucidation process.

Graphical AbstractEfficiently transmit the pseudo-molecular ion to the characteristic fragment ion at m/z 177.02 by ramping the cone voltage from 45 to 100 V to detect the PPAPs by using PID product ion approach on a QTOF mass spectrometer.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload high-quality image (122 K)Download as PowerPoint slide