Effect-directed fingerprints of 77 botanical extracts via a generic high-performance thin-layer chromatography method combined with assays and mass spectrometry

Quantitative effect-directed profiles of 77 industrially and freshly extracted botanicals like herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits, widely used as food ingredients, dietary supplements or traditional medicine, gave relevant information on their quality. It allows the assessment of food, dietary supplements and phytomedicines with regard to potential health-promoting activities. In contrary to sum parameter assays and targeted analysis, chromatography combined with effect-directed analysis allows fast assignment of single active compounds and evaluation of their contribution to the overall activity, originating from a food or botanical sample. High-performance thin-layer chromatography was hyphenated with UV/Vis/FLD detection and effect-directed analysis, using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical, Gram-negative Aliivibrio fischeri, Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis, acetylcholinesterase and tyrosinase assays. Bioactive compounds of interest were eluted using an elution head-based interface and further characterized by electrospray ionization (high-resolution) mass spectrometry. This highly streamlined workflow resulted in a hyphenated HPTLC-UV/Vis/FLD-EDA-ESI+/ESI−-(HR)MS method. The excellent quantification power of the method was shown on three compounds. For rosmarinic acid, contents ranged from 4.5 mg/g (rooibos) to 32.6 mg/g (rosemary), for kaempferol-3-glucoside from 0.6 mg/g (caraway) to 4.4 mg/g (wine leaves), and for quercetin-3-glucoside from 1.1 mg/g (hawthorn leaves) to 17.7 mg/g (thyme). Three mean repeatabilities (%RSD) over 18 quantifications for the three compounds were ≤2.2% and the mean intermediate precision over three different days (%RSD, n = 3) was 5.2%.