The Simultaneous Analysis of Amadori and Heyns Compounds in Dried Fruits by High Performance Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Amadori and Heyns compounds, which play important roles in food flavor, color, and nutritional value, are generated during the Maillard reaction. It is difficult to analyze the compounds simultaneously because the structures of Amadori and Heyns compounds are very similar. To develop a method to distinguish and analyze Amadori and Heyns compounds simultaneously by high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS), studies of mass spectrometry fragments of the Heyns compounds obtained by electrospray ionization were performed and two characteristic fragment ion pairs of Amadori ([AA-H + CH₂]⁺/[M + H]⁺) and Heyns ([M + H-2H₂O–CH₃OH-CO]⁺/[M + H]⁺) compounds were selected by comparing the cleavage mechanism between them. The calibration curves established with ion pairs of Fru-Pro (fructose-proline), Fru-Leu (fructose-leucine), and Fru-Val (fructose-valine) were used to calculate the content of the corresponding Amadori and Heyns compounds. The method displayed good linearity with correlation coefficients no less than 0.9989. The limit of detection was no more than 0.125 ng/mL. The relative standard deviation was less than 4.31 % and the spiked recoveries ranged from 90.55 % to 110.91 %. The method is accurate and reliable for simultaneously determining Amadori and Heyns compounds in dried raisins and jujubes and was helpful for evaluating and controlling the quality of dried fruits.