Non-targeted ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) fingerprints for the chemometric characterization and classification of turmeric and curry samples

Abstract

In this work, non-targeted UHPLC-HRMS fingerprints obtained by C18 reversed-phase chromatography were proposed as sample chemical descriptors for the characterization and classification of turmeric and curry samples. 21 turmeric and 9 curry commercially available samples were analyzed in triplicate after extraction with DMSO. The results demonstrated the feasibility of non-targeted HPLC-HRMS fingerprints for sample classification, showing very good classification capabilities by partial least squares regression-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). 100% classification rates were obtained by PLS-DA when randomly selected samples were processed as 'unknown' ones. Besides, turmeric curcuma species (curcuma longa vs. curcuma zedoaria) and turmeric curcuma longa varieties (Madras, Erodes, and Alleppey) discrimination was also observed by PLS-DA when using the proposed fingerprints as chemical descriptors. As a conclusion, non-targeted UHPLC-HRMS fingerprinting is a suitable methodology for the characterization, classification and authentication of turmeric and curry samples, without the requirement of using commercially available standards for quantification nor the necessity of metabolite identification.