Holistic Comparison of the Lipidomes Simultaneously From 12 Panax Herbal Medicines By Ultra-High-Performance Supercritical Fluid Chromatography Coupled With Ion Mobility-Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

Researches regarding quality control of ginseng focusing on the lipids are rare. Herein, ultra-high-performance supercritical fluid chromatography/ion mobility-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPSFC/IM-QTOF-MS) combined with untargeted metabolomic analysis was utilized to holistically characterize and compare the lipidomic difference among 12 Panax-derived herbal medicines. The established UHPSFC/IM-QTOF-MS method, using a Torus 1-AA column with CO₂/CH₃OH (modifier) as the mobile phase, well resolved the ginseng lipidome within 30 min. The lipid isomers and those easily co-eluted by conventional reversed-phase chromatography got separated, and integrated analyses of the positive-/negative-mode MS data and IM-derived collision cross section (CCS) greatly enhanced lipids identification. By the pattern recognition chemometric analysis of 90 batches of ginseng samples, the root ginseng samples showed significant differences in lipidome composition from those stem/leaf and flower samples. In contrast, red ginseng also contained lipids significantly different from the other root ginseng. Totally 82 potential differential lipids were discovered and identified based on the positive-mode data and 90 ones in the negative mode. Some of these lipid markers might be diagnostic for their authentication. Conclusively, we first report the lipidomic difference among 12 ginseng varieties, and the information obtained can lay foundation for the accurate identification of ginseng from the lipidome level.