A discrimination study of Asia ginseng and America ginseng by a comparison of ginsenosides, oligosaccharides and amino acids using a UPLC-MS method

Abstract

A quantitative analysis of ginseng chemical ingredients was established using UPLC-MS, in which the concentrations of ginsenosides, oligosaccharides, and amino acids in ginseng were determined. Unlike the C18 column, which showed good performance in the determination of ginsenosides, the NH₂ column was used in this method, and it exhibited good separation abilities for three types of compounds, including 6 saponins, 4 oligosaccharides, and 15 amino acids. For each type of compound, a recovery of 88%–111%, with relative standard deviations (RSD) better than 6% (n＝6) were obtained; the limits of quantification (LOQ) for three types of substances were less than 1μg/mL. Furthermore, the method showed strong ability on the discrimination Asia Ginseng and America Ginseng, and was confirmed to be robust, selective, sensitive, rapid and inexpensive.GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• Amino acid
• amino column
• ginseng
• ginsenoside
• oligosaccharide
• quantitative analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the National Natural Science Foundation of China for its support of this work through grant no. 21475012, as well as the Science & Technology Development Project of Jilin Province (grant no. 20160309002YY).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.