Separation and identification of diarylheptanoids in supercritical fluid extract of Alpinia officinarum by UPLC-MS-MS

In the present study, ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled to electrospray ionization (ESI(+)) tandem mass spectrometry (MS) was developed to identify and characterize the diarylheptanoids in the supercritical fluid extract (SFE) of Alpinia officinarum. The method established provides good reproducibility of UPLC and shows high precision with all the mass accuracy of less than 5 ppm. The ESI-MS-MS fragmentation behavior of every group and their appropriate characteristic pathways were proposed. On the basis of analyzing the fragmentation pathways, elemental composition provided by software Masslynx, mass data of the standard compounds and the information regarding polarity obtained from retention time data, in all, 23 diarylheptanods were characterized. All of them have been reported in Alpinia officinarum. They were classified into six distinct groups (homologous series). Compared to the references, the fragmentation pathways of the first and second group were detailed much more and complementary. Further more, the fragmentation pathways of the last four groups were firstly discussed. The fragmentation rules deduced and the data provided could aid in the characterization of other diarylheptanoids of these types and would be useful for the further research of diarylheptanoids in Alpinia officinarum or the other plants.