An analytical strategy for discovering structural analogues of alkaloids in plant food using characteristic structural fragments extraction by high resolution orbitrap mass spectrometry

Structural analogues of alkaloids are a huge risk for food safety. However, the discovery of potentially homologtype alkaloids remains a challenge. A new strategy for discovering structural analogues of alkaloids using high resolution mass spectrometry under data independent acquisition was established using extracted characteristic ions chromatograms and mass spectrometry fragmentations pathway, and successfully developed for discovering and identificating multiple classes of alkaloids in plant food. In this work, we selected 24 alkaloids (pyrrolizidine alkaloids, solanine-type alkaloids, matrine-type alkaloids) as target compounds. The data acquisition was based on a non-target approach of data independent acquisition. The general workflow of structural analogues of alkaloids confirming strategy can be split into four major stages: (i) the pathway of fragmentation clarifying, (ii) characteristic structural fragments filtering and confirming, (iii) structural analogues of alkaloids discovery method establishing, (iv) real sample analysis. This scheme provided an efficient confirming method for discovering structural analogues of alkaloids in plant food.