Characterization of the aromatic composition of some liquid foods by nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry and liquid chromatography with nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometric detection

NMR spectroscopy of wastewater: A review, case study, and future potential

NMR spectroscopy is arguably the most powerful tool for the study of molecular structures and interactions, and is increasingly being applied to environmental research, such as the study of wastewater. With over 97% of the planet's water being saltwater, and two thirds of freshwater being frozen in the ice caps and glaciers, there is a significant need to maintain and reuse the remaining 1%, which is a precious resource, critical to the sustainability of most life on Earth. Sanitation and reutilization of wastewater is an important method of water conservation, especially in arid regions, making the understanding of wastewater itself, and of its treatment processes, a highly relevant area of environmental research. Here, the benefits, challenges and subtleties of using NMR spectroscopy for the analysis of wastewater are considered. First, the techniques available to overcome the specific challenges arising from the nature of wastewater (which is a complex and dilute matrix), including an examination of sample preparation and NMR techniques (such as solvent suppression), in both the solid and solution states, are discussed. Then, the arsenal of available NMR techniques for both structure elucidation (e.g., heteronuclear, multidimensional NMR, homonuclear scalar coupling-based experiments) and the study of intermolecular interactions (e.g., diffusion, nuclear Overhauser and saturation transfer-based techniques) in wastewater are examined. Examples of wastewater NMR studies from the literature are reviewed and potential areas for future research are identified. Organized by nucleus, this review includes the common heteronuclei (¹³C, ¹⁵N, ¹⁹F, ³¹P, ²⁹Si) as well as other environmentally relevant nuclei and metals such as ²⁷Al, ⁵¹V, ²⁰⁷Pb and ¹¹³Cd, among others. Further, the potential of additional NMR methods such as comprehensive multiphase NMR, NMR microscopy and hyphenated techniques (for example, LC-SPE-NMR-MS) for advancing the current understanding of wastewater are discussed. In addition, a case study that combines natural abundance (i.e. non-concentrated), targeted and non-targeted NMR to characterize wastewater, along with in vivo based NMR to understand its toxicity, is included. The study demonstrates that, when applied comprehensively, NMR can provide unique insights into not just the structure, but also potential impacts, of wastewater and wastewater treatment processes. Finally, low-field NMR, which holds considerable future potential for on-site wastewater monitoring, is briefly discussed. In summary, NMR spectroscopy is one of the most versatile tools in modern science, with abilities to study all phases (gases, liquids, gels and solids), chemical structures, interactions, interfaces, toxicity and much more. The authors hope this review will inspire more scientists to embrace NMR, given its huge potential for both wastewater analysis in particular and environmental research in general.

The Impact of Salt Stress on Plant Growth, Mineral Composition, and Antioxidant Activity in Tetragonia decumbens Mill.: An Underutilized Edible Halophyte in South Africa

Climate change, expanding soil salinization, and the developing shortages of freshwater have negatively affected crop production around the world. Seawater and salinized lands represent potentially cultivable areas for edible salt-tolerant plants. In the present study, the effect of salinity stress on plant growth, mineral composition (macro-and micro-nutrients), and antioxidant activity in dune spinach (Tetragonia decumbens) were evaluated. The treatments consisted of three salt concentrations, 50, 100, and 200 mM, produced by adding NaCl to the nutrient solution. The control treatment had no NaCl but was sustained and irrigated by the nutrient solution. Results revealed a significant increase in total yield, branch production, and ferric reducing antioxidant power in plants irrigated with nutrient solution incorporated with 50 mM NaCl. Conversely, an increased level of salinity (200 mM) caused a decrease in chlorophyll content (SPAD), while the phenolic content, as well as nitrogen, phosphorus, and sodium, increased. The results of this study indicate that there is potential for brackish water cultivation of dune spinach for consumption, especially in provinces experiencing the adverse effect of drought and salinity, where seawater or underground saline water could be diluted and used as irrigation water in the production of this vegetable.

A Metabolomic Approach to Beer Characterization

The consumers’ interest towards beer consumption has been on the rise during the past decade: new approaches and ingredients get tested, expanding the traditional recipe for brewing beer. As a consequence, the field of “beeromics” has also been constantly growing, as well as the demand for quick and exhaustive analytical methods. In this study, we propose a combination of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and chemometrics to characterize beer. ¹H-NMR spectra were collected and then analyzed using chemometric tools. An interval-based approach was applied to extract chemical features from the spectra to build a dataset of resolved relative concentrations. One aim of this work was to compare the results obtained using the full spectrum and the resolved approach: with a reasonable amount of time needed to obtain the resolved dataset, we show that the resolved information is comparable with the full spectrum information, but interpretability is greatly improved.

LC–NMR for Natural Product Analysis: A Journey from an Academic Curiosity to a Robust Analytical Tool

Liquid chromatography (LC)–nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) combines the advantage of the outstanding separation power of liquid chromatography (LC) and the superior structural elucidating capability of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). NMR has proved that it is a standout detector for LC by providing maximum structural information about plant originated extracts, particularly on the isolating ability of isomeric (same molecular formula) and/or isobaric (same molecular weight) compounds as compared to other detectors. The present review provides an overview of the developmental trends and application of LC–NMR in natural product analysis. The different LC–NMR operational modes are described, and how technical improvements assist in establishing this powerful technique as an important analytical tool in the analysis of complex plant-derived compounds is also highlighted. On-flow, stop-flow and loop-storage modes, as well as the new offline mode LC–solid phase extraction (SPE)–NMR and capillary LC (capLC)–NMR configurations which avoid the ingestion of expensive deuterated solvents throughout the experiment, are mentioned. Utilization of cryogenic probe and microprobe technologies, which are the other important promising approaches for guaranteeing sensitivity, are also described. Concluding remarks and future outlooks are also discussed.

LC-NMR for Natural Products Analysis: A Journey from an Academic Curiosity to a Robust Analytical Tool

LC–NMR combines the advantage of the outstanding separation power of liquid chromatography (LC) and the superior structural elucidating capability of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). NMR has proved that it is a standout detector for LC by providing maximum structural information about plant originated extracts particularly in its isolating ability of isomeric (same molecular formula) and/or isobaric (same molecular weight) compounds as compared to other detectors. The present review provides an overview of the LC–NMR developmental trends and its application in natural products analysis. The different LC–NMR operational modes are described, as well as how technical improvements assist in establishing this powerful technique as an important analytical tool in the analysis of complex plant-derived compounds. On-flow, stop-flow and loop-storage modes, as well as the new offline mode LC–SPE–NMR and capLC-NMR configurations that avoid the ingestion of expensive deuterated solvents throughout the experiment are mentioned. Utilization of cryogenic probe and microprobe technologies which are the other important promising approaches for guaranteeing the sensitivity issues are also described. Concluding remarks and future outlooks are also discussed.

The “Wine-T1” NMR experiment for novel wine-metabolome fingerprinting with nuclear-spin relaxation

In agreement with the draft resolution OENO-SCMA 17-618 at step 5 “Quantitation of glucose, malic acid, acetic acid, fumaric acid, shikimic acid and sorbic acid in wine using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H NMR)” said technique has been recently accepted within the OIV chair as a primary quantitative analytical technique for beverage analysis such as wine. However, poor chemical shift dispersion in 1H NMR spectra severely penalizes quantification within overlapped or crowded regions. To outflank said penalization and quantify metabolites in signal overcrowding situations, the novel “Wine-T1” experiment is proposed. The novel scheme comprises the addition of a second dimension, wherein the proton spin-lattice relaxation times (T1-{1H}) of each metabolite's spin-system is correlated to a chemical-shift dimension. The new experiment includes a water and ethanol signal pre-saturation module, prior to the T1 saturation-inversion recovery dimension in order to maximize signal-to-noise ratio of wine metabolome NMR spectra. “Wine-T1” pulse sequence can be adapted to all commercial spectrometers (Bruker, Varian/Agilent, Jeol) and with acquisition times in the order of minutes, it should be considered as a fast repetition method to produce a robust metabolome fingerprint that has not been described before, to the best of our knowledge.

(1)H NMR: A Novel Approach To Determining the Thermodynamic Properties of Acetaldehyde Condensation Reactions with Glycerol, (+)-Catechin, and Glutathione in Model Wine

As wine oxidizes, ethanol is converted to acetaldehyde, but its accumulation is not predictable, due to poorly characterized reactions with alcohols, SO2, thiols, flavanols, and others. Measurement of these components has been thwarted by equilibria into the other forms during sample preparation. NMR spectra can be taken on intact samples and is thus ideal for this situation. Equilibria of acetaldehyde with glycerol, (+)-catechin, and glutathione were studied separately in model wine solutions at pH 3-4 by (1)H NMR and 2D ((1)H-(1)H) COSY spectra. Glycerol acetals had equilibrium constants between 1.14 ± 0.056 and 2.53 ± 0.043 M(-1), whereas ethylidene-bridged (+)-catechin dimers and glutathione thiohemiacetals had more favorable equilibria: from (3.92 ± 0.13) × 10(3) to (6.13 ± 0.32) × 10(3) M(-2) and from 10.18 ± 0.22 to 11.17 ± 0.47 M(-1), respectively. These data can be used to create accurate measures of acetaldehyde in its various forms and, consequently, offer insight into wine oxidation.

NMR study of histidine metabolism during alcoholic and malolactic fermentations of wine and their influence on histamine production

The metabolic pathways of amino acids play a crucial role in the organoleptic and hygienic quality in wines. In particular, histidine is one of the most studied amino acids of wines due to histamine toxicity in humans, a biogenic amine derived from histidine by enzymatic decarboxylation. The development of new tools to increase knowledge on metabolism that produces histamine in wine is critical. This study investigated by using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy the transformation of histidine into histaminol and histamine during alcoholic and malolactic fermentations. The transformations of histidine into histaminol during alcoholic fermentation and into histamine during malolactic fermentation were observed. This paper highlights the importance of selecting lactic acid bacteria for malolactic fermentation to avoid the production of biogenic amines such as histamine.

Targeted and nontargeted wine analysis by (1)h NMR spectroscopy combined with multivariate statistical analysis. Differentiation of important parameters: grape variety, geographical origin, year of vintage

The authenticity, the grape variety, the geographical origin, and the year of vintage of wines produced in Germany were investigated by (1)H NMR spectroscopy in combination with several steps of multivariate data analysis including principal component analysis (PCA), linear discrimination analysis (LDA), and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) together with cross-validation (CV) embedded in a Monte Carlo resampling approach (MC) and others. A total of about 600 wines were selected and carefully collected from five wine-growing areas in the southern and southwestern parts of Germany. Simultaneous saturation of the resonances of water and ethanol by application of a low-power eight-frequency band irradiation using shaped pulses allowed for high receiver gain settings and hence optimized signal-to-noise ratios. Correct prediction of classification of the grape varieties of Pinot noir, Lemberger, Pinot blanc/Pinot gris, Müller-Thurgau, Riesling, and Gewürztraminer of 95% in the wine panel was achieved. The classification of the vintage of all analyzed wines resulted in correct predictions of 97 and 96%, respectively, for vintage 2008 (n = 318) and 2009 (n = 265). The geographic origin of all wines from the largest German wine-producing regions, Rheinpfalz, Rheinhessen, Mosel, Baden, and Württemberg, could be predicted 89% correctly on average. Each NMR spectrum could be regarded as the individual "fingerprint" of a wine sample, which includes information about variety, origin, vintage, physiological state, technological treatment, and others.

Chemical profile of white wines produced from 'Greco bianco' grape variety in different Italian areas by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and conventional physicochemical analyses

In this study the characterization of white wines produced from the monovarietal 'Greco bianco' grape variety is presented for the first time. A total of 40 commercial wines, from two different southern Italian regions, Calabria and Campania, from the same grape variety and two different vintages, were investigated. The analyses were performed by means of chromatographic methods, conventional analyses, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. No differentiation was observed according to the year of production but a significant discrimination was achieved using principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). In particular, PLS-DA allowed the selection of compounds (total acidity; citric, malic, succinic, and lactic acids; total polyphenol index; glucose and proline/arginine ratio) useful for differentiating the studied wines on the basis of geographical origin.

NMR-based metabolomics in wine science

As metabolomics is becoming an emerging field of 'omics' research, NMR serves as one of the major analytical approaches of the decade in metabolomic study, producing information-rich, highly reliable and reproducible data set in non-targeted or global and multivariate statistical analysis. Recently, NMR is successfully being used to characterize wine and find an association of wine metabolite with environmental and fermentative factors in vineyard and making wine. This review describes important analytical features and recent applications in/of NMR-based metabolomics in wine science.

Identification of milk mixtures by 1H NMR profiling

Nuclear magnetic resonance profiling, combined with a single-layer artificial neural network, is used for the evaluation of the content of mixtures of different kinds of milk. In particular, aqueous fractions of cow and sheep milk mixtures are analyzed by (1) H NMR. The spectral differences are highlighted by an analysis of the variance and a principal component analysis. The species classification problem is solved by a linear discriminant analysis. The quantification of the relative amount of the milk of two different species is then achieved by solving the appropriate multilinear problem.

NMR methods for beer characterization and quality control

The use of high-resolution NMR spectroscopy in the brewing industry is described; most studies having aimed at assessing the composition of beer and its raw materials and correlating it to a variety of quality parameters. First, the application of NMR to the qualitative characterization of beer is reviewed, addressing both targeted and untargeted methods and focusing on both beer extracts and direct beer analysis. A subsequent chapter addresses the NMR studies, which envisage the development of new rapid methods for beer analysis and quality control, such as site-specific natural fractionation-NMR and multivariate data analysis methods for marker search or rapid compound quantification. Finally, possible future perspectives toward a deeper and more complete understanding of beer and its brewing process are discussed.

Characterization of dandelion species using 1H NMR- and GC-MS-based metabolite profiling

Taraxacum, known as dandelion, is a large genus of plants in the family Asteraceae. Pharmacological studies have shown that these plants display a wide variety of medicinal properties because Taraxacum extracts contain many pharmacologically active metabolites that display anti-inflammatory, antinociceptive, antioxidant, and anticancer activity. Each plant species displays several different natural constituents, the majority of which have not been studied as no global metabolite screen of the diverse Taraxacum species has been performed. In this study, we investigated the metabolite difference in three species of Taraxacum (T. coreanum, T. officinale, and T. platycarpum) by (1)H NMR spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) coupled with multivariate statistical analyses. The aim of this study was to identify the different chemical compositions of the polar and nonpolar extracts in these species. A partial least-squares discriminant analysis showed a significantly higher separation among nonpolar extracts (mainly fatty acids and sterols) compared to polar extracts (mainly amino acids, organic acids, and sugars) between these species. A one-way ANOVA was performed to statistically certify the metabolite differences of these nonpolar extracts. Taken together, these data suggest that a metabolomic approach using combined (1)H NMR and GC-MS analysis is an effective analytical method to differentiate biochemical compositions among different species in plants.

Probing beer aging chemistry by nuclear magnetic resonance and multivariate analysis

This paper describes the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, in tandem with multivariate analysis (MVA), for monitoring the chemical changes occurring in a lager beer exposed to forced aging (at 45°C for up to 18 days). To evaluate the resulting compositional variations, both principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) were applied to the NMR spectra of beer recorded as a function of aging and a clear aging trend was observed. Inspection of PLS-DA loadings and peak integration enabled the changing compounds to be identified, revealing the importance of well known markers such as 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) as well as a range of other relevant compounds: amino acids, higher alcohols, organic acids, dextrins and some still unassigned spin systems. In addition, the multivariate analysis method of 2D correlation analysis was applied to the NMR data enabling the relevant compound variations to be confirmed and inter-compound correlations to be assessed, some reflecting common metabolic/chemical pathways and, therefore, offering improved insight into the chemical aspects of beer aging.

Nuclear magnetic resonance profiling of wine blends

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) profiling is used for characterization of monocultivar binary wine mixtures. Classification and quantification of the relative amount of wine in the mixture are made in two steps. First, each sample is classified as a mixture of a determined type by solving the appropriate classification problem using NMR profiles. The relative amount of the two corresponding monovarietal wines is then evaluated by multilinear regression of a selected set of NMR variables. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA), used in the classification step, gives a very good separation among the different mixture classes. On the other hand, a single layer artificial neural network, used to solve the multilinear problem, gives the relative amount of wine type in the mixture with a precision of about 10%.

Nutrimetabolomics: development of a bio-identification toolbox to determine the bioactive compounds in grape juice

BACKGROUND

Grape juice and related products have previously been associated with many health benefits, such as protection against cardiovascular disease. Current consensus is that the polyphenols are the likely bioactive species in these products.

RESULTS

Extracts of commercially available grape juices exhibited biological antioxidant activities ranging from 19.30 to 3099.51 µM trolox equivalents, as determined by cell-based assay in which J774 macrophages were stimulated with lipopolysaccaride at a concentration of 100 µg/ml for 1 h. Partial least-squares regression was then used to determine covariance between the antioxidant activity and 400 MHz (1)H NMR spectral profiles using models with R(2)X and R(2)Y values of 0.64 and 0.95, respectively, using three latent variables: the Q(2)(cum) was 0.63. Hydroxycinnamic acids and their derivatives were identified as being the most positively correlated with the antioxidant activity.

CONCLUSION

The work presented here describes a strategy for the bioinformatic linkage of plant metabolomic data with in vitro biological activity as an initial step towards determining structure-activity relationships.

Metabolomic characterization of Italian sweet pepper (Capsicum annum L.) by means of HRMAS-NMR spectroscopy and multivariate analysis

HRMAS-NMR spectroscopy was used to assess the metabolic profile of sweet pepper (Capsicum Annum L.). One-dimensional and two-dimensional NMR spectra, performed directly on sample pieces of few milligrams, hence without any chemical and/or physical manipulation, allowed the assignment of several compounds. Organic acids, fatty acids, amino acids, and minor compounds such as trigonelline, C4-substituted pyridine, choline, and cinnamic derivatives were observed with a single experiment. A significant discrimination between the two sweet pepper varieties was found by using partial least-squares projections to latent structures discrimination analysis (PLS-DA). The metabolites contributing predominantly to such differentiation were sugars and organic and fatty acids. Also a partial separation according to the geographical origin was obtained always by analyzing the NMR data with PLS-DA. Some of the discriminating molecules are peculiar for pepper and contribute to define the overall commercial and organoleptic quality so that HRMAS-NMR proved to be a complementary analysis to standard tools used in food science and, in principle, can be applied to any foodstuff.

Evidence of metabolic transformations of amino acids into higher alcohols through (13)C NMR studies of wine alcoholic fermentation

Because the metabolite transformations in wine fermentation processes play a crucial role in the organoleptic and hygienic quality of wines, the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique is presented as a significant tool to follow metabolic pathways. In this paper, we investigated the transformation of several amino acids into their corresponding higher alcohols during the alcoholic fermentation, showing that the amino acids are totally consumed in the first stages of the process.

A thorough study on the use of quantitative 1H NMR in Rioja red wine fermentation processes

In this study, we focused our attention on monitoring the levels of important metabolites of wine during the alcoholic and malolactic fermentation processes by quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance (qNMR). Therefore, using (1)H NMR, the method allows the simultaneous quantification of ethanol, acetic, malic, lactic, and succinic acids, and the amino acids proline and alanine, besides the ratio proline/arginine through fermentation of must of grapes corresponding to the Tempranillo variety. Each (1)H NMR spectrum gives direct and visual information concerning these metabolites, and the effectiveness of each process was assessed and compared by carrying out analyses using infrared spectroscopy to ethanol and acetic acid. The quantitative data were explained with the aid of chemometric algorithms.

Antilisterial activities of polyphenol-rich extracts of grapes and vinification byproducts

The quantitation of the main polyphenols and the assessment of the total polyphenolic content (TPC) in polyphenol-rich extracts of grape berries and vinification byproducts, obtained from Vitis vinifera cultivars of the Greek islands, are presented. The results indicated that seed extracts contain high concentrations of flavan-3-ols and their derivatives, whereas pomace and stem extracts consist of significant amounts of flavonoids, stilbenes, and phenolic acids. In particular, stemsa scarcely studied class of grape byproductwere also characterized by high trans-resveratrol and epsilon-viniferin content. The evaluation of their in vitro antilisterial activities revealed as most potent the seed and stem extracts of the red variety Mandilaria. Their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were assessed using a Malthus apparatus by two methods, a plate count technique and an automated technique that combines the conductance measurements with the common dilution method. The results revealed the usefulness of the conductance method as an alternative rapid means for the MIC estimation, whereas the respective values (0.26 and 0.34 for seeds and stems) indicated that both extracts represent an inexpensive source of potent natural antilisterial mixtures, which may be incorporated in food systems to prevent the growth of Listeria monocytogenes .

Nuclear magnetic resonance and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry combined with an incompleted separation strategy for identifying the natural products in crude extract

NMR and LC-MS combined with an incompleted separation strategy were proposed to the simultaneous structure identification of natural products in crude extracts, and a novel method termed as NMR/LC-MS parallel dynamic spectroscopy (NMR/LC-MS PDS) was developed to discover the intrinsic correlation between retention time (Rt), mass/charge (m/z) and chemical shift (delta) data of the same constituent from mixture spectra by the co-analysis of parallelly visualized multispectroscopic datasets from LC-MS and (1)H NMR. The extracted ion chromatogram (XIC) and (1)H NMR signals deriving from the same individual constituent were correlated through fraction ranges and intensity changing profiles in NMR/LC-MS PDS spectrum due to the signal amplitude co-variation resulted from the concentration variation of constituents in a series of incompletely separated fractions. NMR/LC-MS PDS was applied to identify 12 constituents in an active herbal extract including flavonol glycosides, which was separated into a series of fractions by flash column chromatography. The complementary spectral information of the same individual constituent in the crude extract was discovered simultaneously from mixture spectra. Especially, two groups of co-eluted isomers were identified successfully. The results demonstrated that NMR/LC-MS PDS combined with the incompleted separation strategy achieved the similar function of on-line LC-NMR-MS analysis in off-line mode and had the potential for simplifying and accelerating the analytical routes for structure identification of constituents in herbs or their active extracts.

Characterization of wines by nuclear magnetic resonance: a work study on wines from the Basilicata region in Italy

We explored the possibility of differentiating Italian wines produced in different regions by means of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques. Ten commercial red Aglianico wines were selected from different areas of the Basilicata region in the south of Italy. Some important components of these wines were identified by the assignments of their (1)H and (13)C resonances using one- and two-dimensional homonuclear and heteronuclear NMR experiments. These data were compared with those obtained from 10 Aglianico wines produced in Campania, another southern Italian region. Differences were found among the wines according to their geographical origin and vintage. A fine discrimination of Aglianico wines from Basilicata and Campania was obtained, suggesting that the selected NMR parameters may be a valuable tool for wine authenticity control.

Metabolite profiling of human amniotic fluid by hyphenated nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

The metabolic profiling of human amniotic fluid (HAF) is of potential interest for the diagnosis of disorders in the mother or the fetus. In order to build a comprehensive metabolite database for HAF, hyphenated NMR has been used, for the first time, for systematic HAF profiling. Experiments were carried out using reverse-phase (RP) and ion-exchange liquid chromatography (LC), in order to detect less and more polar compounds, respectively. RP-LC conditions achieved good separation of amino acids, some sugars, and xanthines. Subsequent NMR and MS analysis enabled the rapid identification of 30 compounds, including 3-methyl-2-oxovalerate and 4-aminohippurate identified in HAF for the first time, to our knowledge. Under ion-exchange LC conditions, a different set of 30 compounds was detected, including sugars, organic acids, several derivatives of organic acids, and amino acids. In this experiment, five compounds were identified for the first time in HAF: D-xylitol, amino acid derivatives (N-acetylalanine, N-acetylglycine, 2-oxoleucine), and isovalerate. The nonendogenous nature of some metabolites (caffeine, paraxanthine, D-xylitol, sorbitol) is discussed. Hyphenated NMR has allowed the rapid detection of approximately 60 metabolites in HAF, some of which are not detectable by standard NMR due to low abundance (microM) and signal overlap thus enabling an extended metabolite database to be built for HAF.

Two-dimensional and serial column reversed-phase separation of phenolic antioxidants on octadecyl-, polyethyleneglycol-, and pentafluorophenylpropyl-silica columns

The separation selectivity of octadecyl-silica (C18) and of bonded pentafluorophenylpropyl-silica (F5) and PEG-silica columns was compared for natural phenolic antioxidants. The separation selectivities for phenolic antioxidants on C18 and F5 columns are strongly correlated, but low selectivity correlation indicating strong differences in the retention mechanism was observed between the C18 and PEG columns. Hence, the combination of a C18 and a PEG column is useful for separation of phenolic antioxidants that are not fully separated on single columns. Two-dimensional comprehensive liquid chromatography using a short PEG-silica column in the first dimension and a conventional C18-silica in the second dimension has the advantage of on-column focusing of the fractions transferred onto the C18 column in the second dimension, as a weaker mobile phase is used in the first dimension than in the second dimension. However, a stop-flow set-up in the first dimension system is necessary after the transfer of each fraction to the second dimension. Peak capacity is considerably larger but the separation time is much longer than with serially coupled PEG and C18 columns, which were employed for separation of beer and hop extract samples in connection with coulometric detection.

Online hyphenated liquid chromatography-nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy-mass spectrometry for drug metabolite and nature product analysis

Screening analysis that aims at rapidly distinguishing new molecules in the presence of a large number of known compounds becomes increasingly important in the fields of drug metabolite profiling and nature product investigation. In the past decade, online-coupled liquid chromatography-nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy-mass spectrometry (LC-NMR-MS) has emerged as a powerful tool for the detection and identification of known and, more important, emerging compounds in complex clinical, pharmaceutical samples and nature product extracts, due to the complementary information provided by the two detectors for unambiguous structure elucidation. This review discusses the practical conditions under which LC-NMR-MS is suitable as a routine tool for unknown analysis, as well as the fundamental concepts and their advantage aspects. Particular attention is paid to its major operating parameters that include the instrumental configurations, working modes, NMR probe improvement and LC mobile phase selection. Finally, the recent applications of LC-NMR-MS to clinical metabolite and nature product analysis are summarized which have shown the benefit of this promising hyphenated technique.

Application of multivariate curve resolution methods to on-flow LC-NMR

The application of evolving window factor analysis (EFA), subwindow factor analysis (SFA), iterative target transformation factor analysis (ITTFA), alternating least squares (ALS), Gentle, automatic window factor analysis (AUTOWFA) and constrained key variable regression (CKVR) to resolve on-flow LC-NMR data of eight compounds into individual concentration and spectral profiles is described. CKVR has been reviewed critically and modifications are suggested to obtain improved results. A comparison is made between three single variable selection methods namely, orthogonal projection approach (OPA), simple-to-use interactive self-modelling mixture analysis approach (SIMPLISMA) and simplified Borgen method (SBM). It is demonstrated that LC-NMR data can be resolved if NMR peak cluster information is utilised.