Detailed Chemical Composition Characterization and Multicomponent Quality Control of Cyclocarya paliurus by Combining UPLC-Q-Orbitrap MS, GC–MS, and GC–IMS

Abstract

Cyclocarya paliurus (C. paliurus) is a novel food resource with traditional medicinal properties, including heat-clearing, detumescence, and analgesia. It has exhibited significant therapeutic effects in the treatment of metabolic diseases such as hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension, making it a crucial ingredient in pharmaceutical and health food formulations. However, quality control studies focusing on the multi-component pharmacologically active substances in C. paliurus remain limited. Here, this study employed ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS), gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), and gas chromatography–ion mobility spectrometry (GC–IMS) technologies to profoundly characterize major pharmacologically active substances and quantitatively assess the quality of C. paliurus. A total of 88 compounds were identified from C. paliurus by UPLC-Q-Orbitrap MS, whereas 129 volatile constituents were detected through GC–MS and GC–IMS analysis. Furthermore, an adjusted parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) method was developed and validated for the quantification of eight key effective components of different types in C. paliurus, which were selected as benchmark substances for quality evaluation. In summary, this work offers a universally applicable method for identifying global metabolites and determining the multicomponent composition of complex in traditional Chinese medicine ingredients, providing a pragmatic workflow for assessing the quality and consistency.