MS/MS similarity networking accelerated target profiling of triterpene saponins in Eleutherococcus senticosus leaves

•Use of MS/MS similarity network to generate a precursor list of triterpene saponins.•106 triterpene saponins including 49 potentially new ones were tentatively characterized.•The structural features of saponins in E. senticosus were summarized.•Distribution of triterpene saponins in E. senticosus leaves was investigated.

The targeted mass information of compounds accelerated their discovery in a large volume of untargeted MS data. An MS/MS similarity networking is advanced in clustering the structural analogues, which benefits the collection of mass information of similar compounds. The triterpene saponins extracted from Eleutherococcus senticosus leaves (ESL), a kind of functional tea, have shown promise in the relief of Alzheimer's disease. In this work, a target-precursor list (TPL) generated using MS/MS similarity networking was employed to rapidly trace 106 triterpene saponins from the aqueous extracts of ESL, of which 49 were tentatively identified as potentially new triterpene saponins. Moreover, a compound database of triterpene saponins was established and successfully applied to uncover their distribution features in ESL samples collected from different areas.