Quantitative analysis of curcumin compounds in ginger by ultra-highperformance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

Curcumin compounds are important bioactive compounds in ginger, yet their analysis is limited by their low concentrations. In the current research, a highly sensitive and reliable approach for simultaneous quantitative detection of three curcumin compounds in ginger samples was established using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). The extraction solvent, volume of extraction solvent, sonication time, and oscillation time were optimized by a single factor experiment. The method validation results showed that the regression coefficients were higher than 0.9990, and the linearity was satisfactory. Matrix effects were negligible with the values of 94.6%-98.8%. The recovery at three spiking levels was between 81.7% and 100.0%, and the precision was less than 5.4%. The approach could be used to determine the curcumin components in ginger samples since the results demonstrate that it is easy to use, practicable, repeatable, and accurate.

Keywords

Curcumin / Demethoxycurcumin / Bisdemethoxycurcumin / UHPLC-MS/MS / Ginger

Author contributions

The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: investigation, methodology, validation, writing - original draft: Jiang Y; formal analysis: Liu X, Jiang Y; data curation: Liu X, Zhao Y; resources: Zhang J; supervision, project administration: Qiu J, Qian Y, Weng R; funding acquisition: Weng R; writing - review & editing: Zhao Y, Weng R. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Data availability

Data will be available on reasonable request.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Youth Innovation of CAAS (Y2023QC19), the China Agriculture Research System of MOF and MARA, the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (2023QNRC001), and the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program of CAAS (CAAS-ASTIP-IQSTAP2024).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no known conflict financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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