Profiling the ginsenosides of three ginseng products by LC-Q-TOF/MS

Ginseng is a well-known herbal medicine that has been gaining increasingly popularity as a potential chemopreventive agent. In traditional Chinese medicine practice, white ginseng (WG), red ginseng (RG), and dali ginseng (DG) are 3 different ginseng-processed products used for different purposes. Although the morphological appearance and some constituents contained in these ginseng products are similar, their pharmacological activities are significantly different due to the varied types and quantity of ginsenosides in each product. In the present study, a practical method based on rapid liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry (LC-Q-TOF/MS) was developed to identify the chemical profiles of ginsenosides in these 3 ginseng products. The results demonstrated that a total of 55, 53, and 43 compounds were unambiguously assigned or tentatively identified in DG, WG, and RG samples, respectively. The featured compounds are mainly malonyl ginsenosides in WG, and decarboxyl products of mal-ginsenosides and the dehydrated compounds from polar ginsenosides were characteristic in RG, while DG contain some characteristic components present both in WG and RG. We presume that heating processing is the major factor affecting the chemical profile of ginseng products. The difference of chemical information revealed by LC-Q-TOF/MS could be used to discriminate the WG, RG, and DG samples.