Identification of mountain-cultivated ginseng and cultivated ginseng using UPLC/oa-TOF MSE with a multivariate statistical sample-profiling strategy

Background: Mountain-cultivated ginseng (MCG) and cultivated ginseng (CG) both belong to Panax ginseng and have similar ingredients. However, their pharmacological activities are different due to their significantly different growth environments.

Methods: An ultra-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS)-based approach was developed to distinguish MCG and CG. Multivariate statistical methods, such as principal component analysis and supervised orthogonal partial-least-squares discrimination analysis were used to select the influential components.

Results: Under optimized UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS conditions, 40 ginsenosides in both MCG and CG were unambiguously identified and tentatively assigned. The results showed that the characteristic components of CG and MCG included ginsenoside Ra3/isomer, gypenoside XVII, quinquenoside R1, ginsenoside Ra7, notoginsenoside Fe, ginsenoside Ra2, ginsenoside Rs6/Rs7, malonyl ginsenoside Rc, malonyl ginsenoside Rb1, malonyl ginsenoside Rb2, palmitoleic acid, and ethyl linoleate. The malony ginsenosides are abundant in CG, but higher levels of the minor ginsenosides were detected in MCG.

Conclusion: This is the first time that the differences between CG and MCG have been observed systematically at the chemical level. Our results suggested that using the identified characteristic components as chemical markers to identify different ginseng products is effective and viable.