Chemical profiling of Bulgarian rose absolute (Rosa damascena Mill.) using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and trimethylsilyl derivatives

Rosa damascena Mill. is one of the most important plants from Rosaceae family, with a long historical use in the traditional medicine and as a valuable oil bearing plant. The rose scent derived as oil, concrete or absolute, is one of the world most sought-after products and the development of reliable analytical methods for the origin assessment and quality assurance is of substantial fundamental and practical interest. A comprehensive chemical profiling of Bulgarian rose absolute (Rosa damascena Mill.) was performed by means of GC/MS and GC-FID. A protocol for simultaneous analysis of compounds with high structural diversity and volatility, involving a multistep temperature gradient and trimethylsilyl derivatives was applied for this purpose. As a result 132 compounds, mainly mono- and sesguiterpenoids were identified. The main constituents, representing 80.0-95.5% of the total content of the detected compounds, were quantified by means of GC-FID. The developed approach was applied to rose absolute samples from Egypt and Morocco, as well. The specific chromatographic fingerprint, characteristic for the country of production (climatic-geographical origin) could be used for a fast classification of the rose absolute and for authenticity control.