Determination of Calystegines in Several Tomato Varieties Based on GC-Q-Orbitrap Analysis and Their Classification by ANOVA

Abstract

In this study, several calystegines (A₃, A₅, B₁, B₂, B₃, B₄, and C₁) were determined in tomato. A simple extraction followed by a derivatization step with silylating agents was performed prior to their analysis by gas chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (GC-HRMS-Q-Orbitrap), which allowed the monitoring of several ions at accurate mass. The validation of the method has provided suitable values of linearity, trueness (73.7-120.0%), and precision (≤20.0%, except for calystegines B₃ and B₄ at 0.5 mg/kg). The limit of quantitation was set at 0.5 mg/kg for all analytes. The validated method was successfully applied to the analysis of nine different tomato varieties, and calystegines A₃, A₅, B₂, and C₁ were found at concentrations ranging between 0.65 mg/kg (C₁) and 12.47 mg/kg (B₂). Tomato varieties were classified according to their calystegines content by applying an analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Keywords: ANOVA; GC-MS analysis; Q-Orbitrap; Solanum lycopersicum; calystegines; tomato varieties.