Abstract
A simple, fast and reliable analytical method was developed for 20 free amino acids (FAAs) determination in honey samples through a dilute-and-shoot strategy and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Compared with previous reports, direct dilution by water has significantly reduced the matrix effect and facilitated full extraction of FAAs. Further, a 5 min determination method was established with an acetonitrile–water mobile phase system with 0.1% formic acid addition. The established method was validated and demonstrated several advantages including short detection time, wide linear range over 3–4 orders of magnitude, high sensitivity down to 0.1 ng/mL and negligible matrix effect. Twenty FAAs were determined in 10 honey samples from different botanical origins by this method, and 19 FAAs were found. This general applicable method was also promising for fast determination of FAAs in other practical samples.
Highlights
As an extremely valuable food product, honey has been considered to have medicinal effects including anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor and anti-oxidative activity [1,2]
We introduced a dilute-and-shoot strategy for honey sample preparation and developed a simple, underivatized, and reliable analytical method for rapid determination of 20 natural free amino acids (FAAs) in honey samples
Water, methanol (MeOH), acetonitrile (ACN) and isopropanol, were selected to dilute the matrix and extract FAAs. Among these four solvents, acetonitrile and isopropanol had poor extraction recovery, in that some FAAs could not be extracted and showed low MS signal, and water performed the best according to the dramatic increase in recovery. This is because FAAs have high polarity, so a polar solvent can fully extract FAAs and generate higher signal intensity
Summary
As an extremely valuable food product, honey has been considered to have medicinal effects including anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor and anti-oxidative activity [1,2]. The accurate detection of FAAs facilitates nutritive composition analysis in food, and provides valuable information for elucidating disease machinery. Several studies have reported FAAs analysis using ion-exchange chromatography [9], capillary electrophoresis [10], gas chromatography [11] and high-performance liquid chromatography [12]. Owing to their high polarity and absence of specific chromophores, a derivatization step is usually required for FAAs before these analysis methods to improve detection sensitivity [13,14]. The use of costly and potentially toxic reagents, tedious derivatization procedures and decreased reproducibility are unavoidable drawbacks of derivatization
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