Screening of the polyphenol content of tomato-based products through accurate-mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-QTOF)

Abstract

Tomatoes, the second most important vegetable crop worldwide, are a key component in the so-called "Mediterranean diet" and its consumption has greatly increased worldwide over the past 2 decades, mostly due to a growing demand for tomato-based products such as ketchups, gazpachos and tomato juices. In this work, tomato-based products were analysed after a suitable work-up extraction procedure using liquid chromatography/electrospray ionisation-time of flight-mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-QTOF) with negative ion detection using information-dependent acquisition (IDA) to determine their phenolic composition. The compounds were confirmed by accurate mass measurements in MS and MS(2) modes. The elemental composition was selected according to the accurate masses and isotopic pattern. In this way, 47 compounds (simple phenolic and hydroxycinnamoylquinic acids and flavone, flavonol, flavanone and dihydrochalcone derivatives) were identified in tomato-based products, five of them, as far as was known, were previously unreported in tomatoes. The phenolic fingerprint showed that tomato-based products differ in phenolic composition, principally in protocatechuic acid-O-hexoside, apigenin and its glycosylated forms, quercetin-O-dihexoside, kaempferol-C-hexoside and eriodictyol-O-dihexoside. Gazpacho showed the highest number of phenolic compounds due to the vegetables added for its production.

Keywords: Gazpachos; HPLC; Ketchups; Polyphenols; QTOF; Tomato juices.