Hyphenated Technique of LC-PDA-MS/MS for Phytochemical Profiling of Ficus deltoidea

Abstract

However, scientific data for this herb are very limited, particularly its phytochemical profile. The complexity of the phytochemical profile has hindered the development of this herb to wider application. Recent advancement of hybrid technology in analytical tools has eased the work of phytochemical profiling by simultaneous separation and identification using liquid chromatography integrated with photo diode array and tandem mass spectrometer (LC-PDA-MS/MS). This hyphenated technique was successfully used in the present study. A wide range of phytochemicals including amino acids, organic acids, alkaloids, terpenoids, polyphenols, and their derivatives have been identified. The marker compound, isovitexin (apigenin) was identified at the retention time 17.5 min in the negative ion mode of mass spectrometry. Besides flavone (apigenin), this non-targeted mass screening detected isoflavones (genistein), flavanone (naringenin), flavonol (kaempferol), and flavanol (catechin) in the leaves extract of the plant. Several organic acids and phenolic acids which are very important for plant physiology and defense mechanism were also found in this study. The identification was carried out by matching the fragmentation pattern of the compound to the literature data. The presence of product ions which are the characteristic fragments for a particular compound was used for phytochemical identification. In other words, the frag- mentation pattern of phytochemical is similar to the fingerprint of human beings.