Metabolomics approach to growth‐age discrimination in mountain‐cultivated ginseng (Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer) using ultra‐high‐performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole‐time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry

Abstract

Mountain‐cultivated ginseng is typically harvested after 10 years, while ginseng aged over 15 years is considered wild ginseng. This study aims to differentiate mountain‐cultivated ginseng by age, as the fraudulent practice of selling low‐aged cultivated ginseng disguised as high‐aged one is damaging the market. In this study, LC‐MS analyzed 98 ginseng samples, and multivariate statistical analysis identified patterns between samples to select influential components. Machine learning models were developed to identify ginseng samples of different ages. The untargeted metabolomic analysis clearly divided samples aged 4‐20 years into three age groups. Twenty‐two potential age‐dependent biomarkers were discovered to differentiate the three sample groups. Three machine learning models were used to predict new samples, and the optimal model was selected. Some biomarkers could determine age phases according to the differentiation of mountain‐cultivated ginseng samples. These biomarkers were thoroughly analyzed for variation trends. The machine learning models established using the screened biomarkers successfully predicted the age group of new samples.

Evaluation and comparison of liquid chromatography/high‐resolution mass spectrometry platforms for the separation and characterization of ginsenosides from the leaves of Panax ginseng

“…Isomerism is quite common in ginsenoside structures, and the differentiated retention behavior has been demonstrated as a key factor enabling their discrimination [2, 10]. In this study, Mix‐S D and Mix‐S E solutions containing ginsenoside isomers were analyzed to evaluate the separation performance of three LC‐HRMS platforms in distinguishing the isomers.…”

“…In the previous studies, we extensively optimized the analysis conditions of ginsenosides and achieved good resolution on ginsenosides [2, 10]. In this work, we used the same LC conditions.…”

“…The PPT-type ginsenoside Re (20#; t R 13.28 min; m/z 991.5490) was measured on an Agilent 6550 QTOF using a reference standard comparison as an example. As exhibited in Figure 3A showing the collisioninduced dissociation (CID)-MS 2 According to the existence of the characteristic fragment ions at m/z 783.4897, 637.4328, and 475.3799, two Glc and one Rha were involved. Combined with the PPT-type sapogenin ion of m/z 475.3799, the structure of compound 34# was inferred as PPT-2Glc-Rha-Mal [21].…”

“…Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), which combines the excellent separation ability of LC with the extreme sensitivity of MS, has emerged as one of the most powerful tools widely utilized in characterizing various metabolites from plants [1,2]. LC-MS strategies have been rapidly developed to pursue better performance in accuracy, resolution, and analysis efficiency [3].…”