Liquid chromatography/electrospray tandem mass spectrometry of terpenoid lactones in Ginkgo biloba

Abstract

Ginkgo biloba (ginkgo) is one of most frequently used botanical dietary supplements. The bioactive constituents include the terpenoid lactones consisting of bilobalide and the ginkgolides A, B, C, and J. A new assay based on high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) was developed for the measurement of the terpenoid lactones in ginkgo products such as leaf powder and extracts. Initially, the MS-MS fragmentation pathways of ginkgolides were investigated to identify abundant fragment ions that might be useful for the sensitive and selective detection of ginkgolides and bilobalide during LC-MS-MS. Then, sample preparation and clean-up procedures were streamlined to maximize throughput by taking advantage of the selectivity of LC-MS-MS detection. Analyte recoveries exceeded 90%, the intra-assay and interassay relative standard deviations were less than 5%, the relative error was less than 8%, and the limits of detection and quantification were from 3.6-120 fmol and 11-350 fmol, respectively, depending upon the analyte that was injected onto the HPLC column. Therefore, this LC-MS-MS assay facilitated the rapid quantitative analysis of ginkgolides A, B, C, and J, and bilobalide in ginkgo dietary supplements with excellent recovery, reproducibity, accuracy, and sensitivity.

Analytical Methods for Characterizing Bioactive Terpene Lactones in Ginkgo Biloba Extracts and Performing Pharmacokinetic Studies in Animal and Human

“…It was based on data obtained by means of LC-MS/MS analysis with an APCI source and an ion trap analyzer (ITMS), in negative ion mode. These results are in good agreement with those observed by Sun et al (2005) using an electrospray interface. Instead, the fragmentation of bilobalide obtained by LC-ESI-MS/MS using a triple quadrupole (QqQ) analyzer, shows differences related to the relative abundances of the fragmented ions.…”

Chemotaxonomic Metabolite Profiling of 62 Indigenous Plant Species and Its Correlation with Bioactivities

“…Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based metabolite profiling is valuable for analysis of compounds over a wide range of polarity and molecular weight [26]. Beneficial secondary compounds in plants, such as flavonoids, phenolic compounds, and terpenoids have been identified [27,28], and plant bioactivities, including antioxidant activity [29], antimicrobial activity, and tyrosinase inhibition activity [30] have been reported. However, few studies have attempted to reveal the relationship between metabolite differences and bioactivity in diverse plant species.…”

Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of ginkgo terpene lactone raw material by HPLC/Q-TOF MS combined with HPLC-DAD-ELSD

“…22,23 It seems that protonation of ginkgo terpene lactones within the ion source is positioned on the oxygen atom of the tetrahydrofuran ring or lactonic ring. In the collision-induced dissociation (CID) stage, this ring is initially opened with losses of neutral molecules such as CO and H 2 O, followed by the cleavage of the cyclopentane molecule.…”