Quality assessment of commercial dried ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) based on targeted and non-targeted chemical profiles and anti-inflammatory activity

Dried ginger, a well-known medicine and food homologous production, has been widely circulated in China with high health benefits and economic value. Currently, there is still a lack of quality assessment on whether dried ginger in China exhibits chemically and biologically distinct properties, which creates a barrier to its quality control in commercial circulation. In this study, the chemical characteristics of 34 batches of common dried ginger samples in China were first explored using non-targeted chemometrics based on the UPLC-Q/TOF-MS analysis, leading to the identification of 35 chemicals that contributed to clustering into two categories, with sulfonated conjugates being the key chemically distinct components. By comparing the samples before and after sulfur-containing treatment and the further synthesis of a key differentiating component of [6]-gingesulfonic acid, it was then demonstrated that sulfur-containing treatment was the primary cause of the formation of sulfonated conjugates, as opposed to regional or environmental factors. Furthermore, the anti-inflammatory efficacy of dried ginger with high presence of sulfonated conjugates was significantly decreased. Consequently, for the first time, UPLC-QqQ-MS/MS was used to develop a targeted quantification method for 10 characteristic chemicals in dried ginger, allowing researchers to quickly determine whether dried ginger has been processed with sulfur and quantitatively evaluate the quality of dried ginger. These results provided an insight into the quality of commercial dried ginger in China and a suggested method for its quality supervision as well.