Plants (Nov 2024)

Development of a Tandem Mass Spectral Library for the Detection of Triterpenoids in Plant Metabolome Based on Reference Standards

  • Bibi Zareena,
  • Syed Usama Y. Jeelani,
  • Adeeba Khadim,
  • Arslan Ali,
  • Jalal Uddin,
  • Satyajit D. Sarker,
  • Matthias Rainer,
  • Shaden A. M. Khalifa,
  • Hesham R. El-Seedi,
  • Muhammad Ramzan,
  • Syed Ghulam Musharraf

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13233278
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 23
p. 3278

Abstract

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Plant triterpenoids represent a diverse group of secondary metabolites and are thought to be valuable for therapeutic applications. For drug development, lead optimization, better knowledge of biological pathways, and high-throughput detection of secondary metabolites in plant extracts are crucial. This paper describes a qualitative method for the rapid and accurate identification of various triterpenoids in plant extracts using the LC-HR-ESI-MS/MS tool in combination with the data-dependent acquisition (DD) approach. A total of 44 isolated, purified, and characterized triterpenoids were analyzed. HR-MS spectra and tandem mass spectra (MS/MS) of each compound were recorded in the positive ionization mode in two different sets of collisional energies, i.e., (25–62.5 eV), and fixed collisional energies (10, 20, 30, and 40 eV). As a result, three triterpenoids were identified in all plant extracts using the retention time, high-resolution mass spectra, and/or MS/MS spectra. The developed method will be helpful with other plant extracts/botanicals, as well as in the search for new triterpenoids in the kingdom Plantae.

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