Identification and Quantification of the Major Constituents in Egyptian Carob Extract by Liquid Chromatography-Electrospray Ionization-Tandem Mass Spectrometry.

Background: Carob - Ceratonia siliqua L., commonly known as St John's-bread or locust bean, family Fabaceae - is one of the most useful native Mediterranean trees. There is no data about the chromatography methods performed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for determining polyphenols in Egyptian carob pods.

Objective: To establish a sensitive and specific liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization (ESI)-tandem mass spectrometry (MS(n)) methodology for the identification of the major constituents in Egyptian carob extract.

Materials And Methods: HPLC with diode array detector and ESI-mass spectrometry (MS) was developed for the identification and quantification of phenolic acids, flavonoid glycosides, and aglycones in the methanolic extract of Egyptian C. siliqua. The MS and MS(n) data together with HPLC retention time of phenolic components allowed structural characterization of these compounds. Peak integration of ions in the MS scans had been used in the quantification technique.

Results: A total of 36 compounds were tentatively identified. Twenty-six compounds were identified in the negative mode corresponding to 85.4% of plant dry weight, while ten compounds were identified in the positive mode representing 16.1% of plant dry weight, with the prevalence of flavonoids (75.4% of plant dry weight) predominantly represented by two methylapigenin-O-pentoside isomers (20.9 and 13.7% of plant dry weight).

Conclusion: The identification of various compounds present in carob pods opens a new door to an increased understanding of the different health benefits brought about by the consumption of carob and its products.

Summary: This research proposed a good example for the rapid identification of major constituents in complex systems such as herbs using sensitive, accurate and specific method coupling HPLC with DAD and MS, which facilitate the clarification of phytochemical composition of herbal medicine for better understanding of their nature and biological activities. Abbreviation used: HPLC: High performance liquid chromatography, DAD: Diode array detector, MS: Mass spectrometry, T R: Retention time.