Non-Targeted Screening Approaches for Profiling of Volatile Organic Compounds Based on Gas Chromatography-Ion Mobility Spectroscopy (GC-IMS) and Machine Learning

Due to its high sensitivity and resolving power, gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) is a powerful technique for the separation and sensitive detection of volatile organic compounds. It is a robust and easy-to-handle technique, which has recently gained attention for non-targeted screening (NTS) approaches. In this article, the general working principles of GC-IMS are presented. Next, the workflow for NTS using GC-IMS is described, including data acquisition, data processing and model building, model interpretation and complementary data analysis. A detailed overview of recent studies for NTS using GC-IMS is included, including several examples which have demonstrated GC-IMS to be an effective technique for various classification and quantification tasks. Lastly, a comparison of targeted and non-targeted strategies using GC-IMS are provided, highlighting the potential of GC-IMS in combination with NTS.     

Characterization of the Chemical Profile of Euphorbia Species from Turkey by Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), Liquid Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), and Liquid Chromatography–Ion Trap–Time-of-Flight–Mass Spectrometry (LC-IT-TOF-MS) and Chemometric Analysis†

The Euphorbiaceae family comprises of about 300 genera and 5000 species primarily distributed in America and tropical Africa. The Euphorbia genus is represented by 105 species and locally named as “Sütle?en” and “Xa?îl” in Turkey. The present study aimed to determine the chemical constituents of E. aleppica, E. eriophora, E. macroclada, E. grisophylla, E. seguieriana subsp. seguieriana, E. craspedia, E. denticulata, E. falcata, and E. fistulosa, and classify them by utilizing the chemometric techniques of principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). Linoleic acid, 17-tetratriacontane, palmitic acid, and hexatriacontane were the major fatty acids from the gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analyses. Characterization of 268 constituents of the studied species was achieved by liquid chromatography–ion trap–time-of-flight–mass spectrometry (LC-IT-TOF-MS). Furthermore, a new liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the simultaneous quantitative determination of 11 compounds (quinic acid, protocatechuic acid, rutin, hesperidin, eugenol, p-coumaric acid, piceatannol, scopoletin, dl-kavain, chrysophanic acid, and resiniferatoxin) in these species. The developed method was validated for the linearity, limit of detection, limit of quantification, repeatability, and recovery.     

表面解吸常压化学电离质谱快速分析六味地黄丸

采用新型表面解吸常压化学电离(Surface Desorption Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionization, SDAPCI)质谱法, 在敞开环境下, 对潮湿的空气进行电晕放电产生试剂离子, 进而在六味地黄丸表面发生解吸电离过程, 在无需复杂预处理的前提下对六味地黄丸中的待测物进行离子化, 从而获得了六味地黄丸在正负离子模式下的化学指纹图谱, 并利用主成分分析法对质谱指纹数据进行处理, 可对6个厂家生产的多个批次产品进行较好的区分. 结果表明, SDAPCI-MS技术能够快速测定六味地黄丸的剂型和生产厂家信息, 并能够对目标组分做多级串联质谱鉴定, 发现痕量目标组分. 研究方法可望应用于中成药药品生产质量控制和成品检测等领域.     

Real-Time Distinguishing of the Xylene Isomers Using Photoionization and Dissociation Mass Spectra Obtained by Femtosecond Laser Mass Spectrometry (FLMS)

Abstract

Distinguishing chemicals and improvement on analytical methods has a direct impact on modern chemical analysis. In this work, the dissociative ionization of xylene isomers was investigated using a femtosecond laser mass spectrometry (FLMS) method with a custom-built linear time-of-flight (TOF) instrument. Laser beams at 800?nm and 400?nm were used and intensity-dependent analysis of the obtained mass spectra was performed using principal component analysis (PCA) to distinguish the xylene isomers, which give identical mass spectra in appearance that cannot be distinguished using normal mass spectrometry methods. The results show that there is a statistically highly significant difference between the xylene isomers for two principal components (1 ? α?>?99.99%) and minimal information loss (<5%) took place during the PCA procedure. Also, the use of the k-medoid clustering method showed that the isomers may be distinguished in real-time for a wide range of ionization laser pulse powers with approximately 99% accuracy. The results suggest that real-time isomer analysis by the FLMS method is suitable for mass spectral identification applications. The FLMS method has been shown to be an important alternative to other mass spectrometric methods that use different ionization mechanisms.     

全二维气相色谱/飞行时间质谱(GC×GC/TOFMS)用于烟叶中挥发、半挥发性碱性化合物的组成研究

建立了烟叶中挥发性、半挥发性碱性化合物组成研究的全二维气相色谱/飞行时间质谱(GC×GC/TOFMS)分析方法, 并用所建立的方法对香料烟中碱性化合物进行了表征. 对比了一维气相色谱和全二维色谱方法用于烟叶碱性组分组成分析的效果. 一维色谱质谱方法共鉴定出45种碱性化合物. 用所建立的全二维气相色谱方法, 采用TOFMS谱图库检索结合全二维特有的包含结构信息的二维谱图, 通过族分离和结构谱图鉴定, 鉴定出了香料烟中挥发性、半挥发性碱性组分共92种. 包括吡咯类化合物6种, 吡啶类化合物39种, 吡嗪类化合物10种, 苯胺类化合物11种, 喹啉类化合物11种, 吲哚类4种和其他类化合物11种. 同时对不同类别的化合物在二维气相色谱上的分布模式进行了研究. 研究结果表明, 全二维色谱飞行时间质谱的高分辨率和特有的定性手段适合于烟叶这类复杂植物体系的化学组成研究.     

Comparative Evaluation of Red Wine from Various European Regions Using Mass Spectrometry Tools

The goal of this work was to assess differences in the composition of red wine produced in Poland, Hungary, Moldova, and Bulgaria, related to their geographical origin. Inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry results obtained for 23 elements were submitted to principal component analysis, indicating the association of Li, Co, Se, Cu, Sr with Moldovan products; Hungarian and Moldovan wines were characterized by V, As, Al, Fe variables, whereas Be was distinctive for Hungarian products. Polish wines were grouped with Cd and Pb and Bulgarian with Tl, Ba, Rb, and Mo; U and Mn were found as characteristic variables for wines from Bulgaria and Moldova. According with current legislation, the investigated wines were not contaminated with heavy metals and might be even considered a good source of essential elements (Cu, Mn, Fe, Zn, Cr, and Co). Gas chromatography–high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry was used as a complementary analytical tool, targeting nonvolatile organic compounds amenable for silylation. Statistical data analysis revealed that geographical factors strongly affected the metabolic profiles. Specifically, 15 compounds presenting higher abundances in Bulgarian as compared to Polish wines were found, including monosaccharides, polyols, organic acids, sugar acids, and the amino acid proline. The highest fold change was obtained for ribose (37.9), followed by proline (12.2) and inositol (5.68), suggesting that these compounds might be especially useful for discrimination purposes. The obtained results encourage for further studies aimed at the discrimination of wine produced over the entire Central-East European region based on metal/metalloid profiling and on the evaluation of specific metabolites.     

Chemometric Analysis of Urinary Volatile Organic Compounds to Monitor the Efficacy of Pitavastatin Treatments on Mammary Tumor Progression over Time

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urine are potential biomarkers of breast cancer. Previously, our group has investigated breast cancer through analysis of VOCs in mouse urine and identified a panel of VOCs with the ability to monitor tumor progression. However, an unanswered question is whether VOCs can be exploited similarly to monitor the efficacy of antitumor treatments over time. Herein, subsets of tumor-bearing mice were treated with pitavastatin at high (8 mg/kg) and low (4 mg/kg) concentrations, and urine was analyzed through solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Previous investigations using X-ray and micro-CT analysis indicated pitavastatin administered at 8 mg/kg had a protective effect against mammary tumors, whereas 4 mg/kg treatments did not inhibit tumor-induced damage. VOCs from mice treated with pitavastatin were compared to the previously analyzed healthy controls and tumor-bearing mice using chemometric analyses, which revealed that mice treated with pitavastatin at high concentrations were significantly different than tumor-bearing untreated mice in the direction of healthy controls. Mice treated with low concentrations demonstrated significant differences relative to healthy controls and were reflective of tumor-bearing untreated mice. These results show that urinary VOCs can accurately and noninvasively predict the efficacy of pitavastatin treatments over time.     

气相色谱-质谱联用结合化学计量学方法分析光照对鱼腥草挥发性成分的影响

采用色谱-质谱联用技术结合化学计量学方法对不同光照生长条件的鱼腥草挥发性成分进行分析。水蒸气蒸馏法提取鱼腥草挥发油,气相色谱-质谱进行分析。色谱指纹图谱结合主成分分析与相似度评价以探究不同光照挥发油成分的异同。直观推导式演进特征投影法(Heuristic evolving latent projections,HELP)分辨重叠色谱峰,NIST标准质谱库结合相关文献进行定性,峰面积归一化法定量,t-检验比较不同光照组成分含量间是否有显著性差异。3种光照下的鱼腥草挥发油指纹图谱存在一定的共性和差异,共鉴定出33种化合物,共有化合物26种。随着光照强度的减少,单萜类化合物含量减少,非萜类含量增多,倍半萜类变化不大。癸酰乙醛和甲基正壬酮在全光照组的含量明显低于遮光组的含量。研究结果表明,适度的遮光有利于鱼腥草挥发性有效成分含量的提高,鱼腥草药材挥发性成分种类及含量与生长条件密切相关。     

顶空气相色谱-质谱联用结合同位素峰形校正检索技术鉴别芝麻油风味成分

采用顶空气相色谱-质谱联用(GC-MS)仪结合同位素峰形校正检索技术鉴别了市售芝麻油风味成分中的71种化合物,占总检出化合物的90.2%。检出化合物可分为吡嗪、吡咯、吡啶、噻唑、噻吩、吲哚、唑、呋喃、醛类和酚类等,其中醛、酚、吡嗪和呋喃类化合物的含量较高,分别占风味成分含量的37.4%,20.1%,10.0%和6.7%。同位素峰形校正检索技术在低分辨率质谱上可对化合物的相对分子质量实现精确测量,从而为低分辨率四极杆质谱确定化合物的元素组成和解析化合物结构提供了重要依据,同时也为芝麻油的成分分析提供了新的技术手段。     

Optimization of Fish Quality by Evaluation of Total Volatile Basic Nitrogen (TVB-N) and Texture Profile Analysis (TPA) by Near-Infrared (NIR) Hyperspectral Imaging

Hyperspectral images contain both spectral and spatial image information and were investigated to characterize the freshness of fish. However, most studies of this application have focused on spectral signals rather than image features. The goal of this work was to investigate the ability of spectral and image textural variables for predicting the chemical and physical qualities of fish, respectively, and to optimize the variables for the specific quality determination. The chemical (total volatile basic nitrogen, TVB-N) and physical (texture profile analysis, TPA) properties were investigated. Partial least square (PLS) was applied to develop fish quality prediction models with the spectral and textural variables from the hyperspectral images. The results showed that the TVB-N content of fish fillets was accurately predicted using the spectra. Meanwhile, the TPA parameters were determined through the image textural features with high accuracy, which indicated image textural features were highly related with the TPA parameters. Moreover, spectral and textural features were also extracted from fish eyes and gills and were further used to predict the intact fish quality, taking advantage of the freshness sensitivity of the eyes and gills. The results illustrate that spectra from fish eyes and gills are a potential tool to predict the TVB-N content and TPA parameters for intact fish.     

微波蒸馏-固相微萃取-气相色谱-质谱-嗅觉检测器联用分析鳙鱼鱼肉中的挥发性成分

用微波蒸馏(MD)-固相微萃取装置(SPME)提取鳙鱼鱼肉中的挥发性成分,利用气相色谱-质谱联用仪(GC-MS)对气味化合物成分进行了定性分析,同时利用嗅觉检测器鉴别了部分挥发性物质的气味特征。实验中优化了MD的操作条件(加热功率、加热时间及载气流速等)、SPME参数(萃取头种类、萃取温度、萃取时间、无机盐离子浓度及搅拌速率等)。通过NIST 02质谱数据库检索共定性确定出鳙鱼鱼肉挥发性成分中的53种化合物,其中主要为 C6~C9 的羰基化合物和挥发性醇类。经过嗅觉检测器分析,这些成分分别具有青草味、鱼腥味、泥土味等气味特征,其协同作用构成了鳙鱼鱼肉特殊的鱼腥味、泥腥味。该方法可用于水产品中挥发性成分的分析,并可为不良风味化合物的定量研究提供参考。     

全二维气相色谱/飞行时间质谱用于烟叶中酸性成分的分离与分析

建立了烟叶中酸性化合物(挥发性、 半挥发性羧酸类和酚类)组成研究的全二维气相色谱/飞行时间质谱(GC×GC-TOFMS)分析方法, 并用此方法对香料烟中的酸性化合物进行了表征. 用同时蒸馏萃取样品的前处理方法, 采用TOFMS谱图库检索结合全二维特有的包含结构信息的二维谱图, 通过族分离和结构谱图, 鉴定出了香料烟中143种挥发性及半挥发性酸性组分, 包括10种酸酐和呋喃二酮, 43种有机酸和90种酚类化合物. 同时对不同类别的化合物在二维气相色谱上的分布模式进行了研究. 结果表明, 全二维气相色谱飞行时间质谱的高分辨率非常适合于烟叶这类复杂体系的分离分析.     

稻米代谢组学分析方法的建立及在产地溯源中的应用

采用气相色谱-串联四极杆飞行时间质谱(GC/Q-TOF MS)建立了稻米的代谢组学分析方法,并将其应用于产地溯源。利用D-最优设计对提取溶剂进行优化,通过偏最小二乘分析法考察了不同溶剂对代谢物提取效率的影响。考察了衍生试剂种类、衍生温度及时间对代谢物检测的影响,最终确定分析条件为:甲醇-水(1∶1)为提取溶剂,N-甲基-N-三甲基硅基三氟乙酰胺-三甲基氯硅烷(MSTFA-TMCS,99∶1)于60℃条件下衍生1 h。选取10种代谢物考察仪器精密度、方法重现性和衍生产物稳定性,相对标准偏差(RSD)均小于9%,证明了方法的可靠性。结合Mass Profiler Professional(MPP)软件,以主成分分析(PCA)法区分黑龙江省4个地区的29个绥粳4号稻米样本,分类效果显著。对显著变化(P0.05,倍率变化≥2)的差异性代谢物进行鉴定,确定了11种特征标记物。结果表明,利用GC/Q-TOF MS建立代谢组学分析方法,结合主成分分析鉴别稻米产地具有可行性,为大米市场的规范和资源开发利用提供了依据。     

Elucidation of Analytical–Compositional Fingerprinting of Three Different Species of Chili Pepper by Using Headspace Solid-Phase Microextraction Coupled with Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry Analysis,and Sensory Profile Evaluation

The aim of the present study was to determine the volatile compounds of three different species of chili peppers, using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) methods in combination with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The detection of marker aroma compounds could be used as a parameter to differentiate between species of chili peppers for their detection and traceability in chili pepper food. The sensorial contribution was also investigated to identify the predominant notes in each species and to evaluate how they can influence the overall aroma. Three different pepper species belonging to the Capsicum genus were analyzed: Chinense, Annuum, and Baccatum. A total of 269 volatile compounds were identified in these species of chili peppers. The Capsicum annum species were characterized by a high number of acids and ketones, while the Capsicum chinense and Capsicum baccatum were characterized by esters and aldehydes, respectively. The volatile profile of extra virgin olive oils (EVOOs) flavored with chili peppers was also investigated, and principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) of the volatile profiles were demonstrated to be a powerful analytical strategy for building a model that highlights the potential of a volatile characterization approach for use in evaluating food traceability and authenticity.     

Analysis of lignin from archaeological waterlogged wood by direct exposure mass spectrometry (DE-MS) and PCA evaluation of mass spectral data

The chemical characterisation of waterlogged archaeological wood is of fundamental importance to understand the degradation processes undergone by wooden objects and consequently to develop suitable consolidation and conservation procedures. Lignin extracted from archaeological waterlogged wood samples was characterized using direct exposure electron ionisation mass spectrometry (DE-MS). DE-MS achieves a mass spectral fingerprint of the sample in a few minutes, avoiding any chemical pre-treatment and requiring only few micrograms of material.Mass spectral data were put in relation to the chemical composition of lignin and evaluated by means of principal component analysis (PCA). The preliminary results, presented in this study, demonstrate the feasibility and the potential of DE-MS as a reproducible and rapid screening method for archaeological waterlogged wood samples.     

Evaluation of doped and undoped poly (o‐anisidine) as sensing materials for a sensor array for volatile organic compounds

Poly (o‐anisidine) (PoANI) and PoANI doped with nickel oxide and zinc oxide were evaluated as sensing materials for four gas analytes (methanol, ethanol, acetone, and benzene). The sensing materials had high sensitivity (showing an affinity towards the target analytes even at low concentrations, in the range of 1‐5 ppm), but rather poor selectivity, especially when the gas analytes were in a mixture. To exploit the poor selectivity, the three sensing materials were combined into a sensor array using principal component analysis (PCA) as a sensing algorithm. It was found that using a sensor array, the four individual gases could be separated. However, when all four gases were present (in analyte mixtures), there was too much overlap in the responses to distinguish between individual gas analytes and their related mixtures.     

聚甲基三氟丙基硅氧烷固相微萃取涂层的制备及其对海水中酚类化合物的分析

采用溶胶-凝胶技术制备了聚甲基三氟丙基硅氧烷(PTFPMS)涂层,并将其作为萃取     

顶空提取/气相色谱-四极杆质谱联用定量分析精TiCl4中痕量CS2与CCl4

运用在线顶空提取/气相色谱-四极杆质谱联用技术(HS/GC-QMS),建立了精TiCl4中有机痕量杂质CS2和CCl4的定量分析方法。在85℃及中速振摇的条件下平衡20 min,定量地将顶空气体直接引入GCQMS中,并在质谱选择离子监测(SIM)模式下,以n-C6H14(m/z 86)为内标,采用标准加入法对CS2(m/z 76)和CCl4(m/z 117)进行定量测定。CS2和CCl4在相应浓度范围内呈良好线性,回归系数(r)均大于0.999 0,最低定量下限(LOQ)均为20 nL/L,在4个不同加标水平下,平均回收率分别为102.2%和108.5%,相对标准偏差为1.3%~18.9%。该方法分析过程简单、快捷,结果准确、稳定,可用于TiCl4的质量监控,并可为精TiCl4工业监控提供有利参考。