Analysis of propolis by liquid-chromatography-mass spectrometry

摘要

It is necessary to determine the phytochemical constituents in propolis in order to ensure the reliability of pharmacological and clinical research, to understand their bioactivities and to enhance product quality control. Analysis by HPLC, TLC and UV spectra has been used for these purposes. It is usually difficult to obtain the detail information of each component in propolis by a single method, since propolis contains various kinds of compounds. High-perfor-mance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS) was applied to the analysis of the ethanol extracts of Brazilian propolis. The negative electrospray ionization mode was used, and the constituents of the propolis were compared with standard samples by mass analysis. Further tandem massspectrometry (MS/MS) was applied to identify the compounds. This study demonstrates that LC/ MS could be a very useful technique for propolis characterization.