Novel MS technologies for dereplication and structural elucidation in natural products research

The integration of ultra-performance liquid chromatography with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) technologies can generate an incredibly rich dataset for natural products research. In order to take full advantage of all the information, a comprehensive informatics platform is required to organize and mine the data to extract useful results and potentially correlate to other types of data such as biological activity or known chemical properties [1,2]. In addition, there are many novel mass spectrometric tools that can greatly assist natural product researchers.

In this presentation, a number of strategies will be covered. We will show how to use in-house and on-line libraries in the UNIFI Natural Products solution to help identify natural products in complex mixtures, and how to utilize large sets of LCMS data to track components, observe trends or correlate with additional inputs [3]. Once interesting components are identified, we will demonstrate how to interrogate properties of the molecules, including how to utilize structural elucidation tools to confirm known compounds and elucidate unknown structures. HRMS properties such as isotopic patterns and elemental composition can then be used to confirm targets and improve identification of unknowns, as well as enabling the grouping or identification of families of related compounds using common fragment ions and neutral losses. An overview of acquisition modes including Q-TOF DIA, DDA and Ion Mobility and their applications for use natural products research will be reviewed [4].

Keywords: Structure elucidation, HRMS, ion-mobility, MS/MS.

References:

[1] Wang YH, Avula B, Isaac G, Yuk J, Wrona M, Yu K, Khan IA. Chemical ingredient profiling of various botanicals and dietary supplements using LC-MS coupled with novel informatics UNIFI platform. Planta Med 2016; 82: PA3

[2] Avula B, Wang YH, Isaac G, Yuk J, Wrona M, Yu K, Khan IA. Metabolomics based UHPLC-QToF-MS approach for the authentication of various botanicals and dietary supplements. Planta Med 2016; 82: OA13

[3] Lee JW, Ji SH, Kim GS, Song KS, Um Y, Kim OT, Lee Y, Hong CP, Shin DH, Kim CK, Lee SE, Ahn YS, Lee DY. Global profiling of various metabolites in Platycodon grandiflorum by UPLC-QTOF/MS. Int J Mol Sci 2015; 16: 26786 – 26796

[4] Zhang H, Zheng D, Li HH, Wang H, Tan HS, Xu HX. Diagnostic filtering to screen polycyclic polyprenylated acylphloroglucinols from Garcinia oblongifolia by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography coupled with ion mobility quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Anal Chim Acta 2016: 912: 85 – 96