Rapid fingerprinting of extractable and non-extractable polyphenols from tropical fruit peels using direct analysis in real time coupled to orbitrap mass spectrometry

A simple and rapid direct analysis in real-time coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (DART-HRMS) methodology was developed to generate the extractable and non-extractable polyphenols (NEPs) fingerprint for four different passion fruits, G. mangostana, and A. squamosa peels as case-study to investigate the influence of alkaline hydrolysis and enzymatic-assisted extraction (EAE) on the recovery of NEPs. The extraction residue obtained after these treatments was also analyzed by DART-HRMS. Data compiled from DART-HRMS mass spectra were processed with principal component analysis to discriminate among the different treatments. EAE with Depol enzyme enabled to obtain NEPs with the highest signal intensity in DART-HRMS analysis from all peels except for P. edulis and A. squamosa peels. In these two cases, NEPs were better extracted by EAE with Promod enzyme and alkaline hydrolysis. Results showed that the applied treatments were efficient to extract NEPs since their signal intensities in the extraction residues were very low compared with their extracts.

Automated summary

A simple and rapid direct analysis method was developed using DART-HRMS technology to investigate the extraction of NEPs from different fruit peels, with EAE showing significant impact on NEPs recovery, and principal component analysis could effectively distinguish different treatment methods.