Metabolic fingerprinting of royal jelly: characterization and proof of authenticity

Introduction Metabolic fingerprint is a high-throughput screening to provide a sample classification. Objectives Herein, we describe a metabolic fingerpint strategy for proof of authenticity and possible adulteration of natural products. This strategy provides useful and complementary information to food science for content analysis. Methods Twelve samples of commercial royal jelly were analysed by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) in the negative mode. ESI-MS/MS was performed for characteristic negatively charged ions. Results Thermostability studies were also performed to royal jelly samples in order to evaluate the change on chemical composition with different times of exposure to heating and storage at room temperature. Conclusion The methodology developed in this work is useful to proof of authenticity and degradation of royal jelly samples using minimum sample preparation and direct injection of extracts.