Characterization and determination of genipin-1-β-gentiobioside in gardenia fruit by high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection following electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

A practical method for the analysis of genipin-1-β-gentiobioside in gardenia fruit was developed by high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet monitoring and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry characterization (HPLC/UV/ESI-MS). Efficiency of ultrasonic extraction (UE), accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) and high-speed homogenizer extraction (HHE) on genipin-1-β-gentiobioside in gardenia fruit was compared. UE gave higher extraction efficiency and lower matrix interference, and it was employed. Analysis of genipin-1-β-gentiobioside was performed using a Supelco C₁₈ column with methanol–20 mM NH₄Ac (30:70, v/v) as the eluent. Flow rate was at 0.8 ml/min, and the detection was at 240 nm. The limit of detection (LOD), using HPLC/UV, was about 0.25 μg/ml, whereas the overall recovery was better than 96.0%. Both full scan MS and MS² of genipin-1-β-gentiobioside with positive polarity were obtained and elucidated. The specific ions were chosen to characterize genipin-1-β-gentiobioside in gardenia fruit sample. The proposed method has been successfully applied to measure the real samples and the content profiles of genipin-1-β-gentiobioside in gardenia fruit samples were obtained and evaluated.