Abstract

Introduction: Euterpe oleracea Mart. (a?aí) is a botanical of interest to many who seek functional foods that provide antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Cancer patients are increasingly taking botanical dietary supplements containing a?aí to complement their conventional therapeutics, which may lead to serious adverse events. Before testing our a?aí extracts in vitro for botanical-drug interactions, the goal is to chemically characterize our extracts for compounds whose biological activity in a?aí is unknown.

Objective: The objective of this work was to develop a chemical fingerprinting method for untargeted characterization of a?aí samples from a variety of sources, including food products and botanical dietary supplement capsules, made with multiple extraction solvents.

Methods: An optimized LC-MS method was generated for in-depth untargeted fingerprinting of chemical constituents in a?aí extracts. Statistical analysis models were used to describe relationships between the a?aí extracts based on molecular features found in both positive and negative mode ESI.

Results: In an attempt to elucidate the differences in metabolites among a?aí extracts from different cultivars, we identified or tentatively identified 173 metabolites from the 16 extracts made from 6 different sources. Of these compounds, there are 138 reported in a?aí for the first time. Statistical models showed similar yet distinct differences between the extracts tested based on the polarity of compounds present and the origin of the source material.

Conclusion: A high-resolution mass spectrometry method was generated that allowed us to greatly characterize 16 complex extracts made from different sources of a?aí with different extraction solvent polarities.