Quality assessment for the flower of Lonicera japonica Thunb. during flowering period by integrating GC-MS, UHPLC-HRMS, and chemometrics

The rapid changes of inherent compounds in Lonicera japonica Thunb. (L. japonica) during the flowering period can seriously affect its industry quality. Most of current studies focused on several targeted compounds, which, unfortunately, cannot provide a comprehensive overview on the compound variations. Therefore, the relationship between the compositions of compounds and the flower quality of L. japonica is still unknown. Aiming to address this problem, analytical methods based on GC-MS and UHPLC-HRMS were built for high-thoroughly characterizing compounds in the flower quality of L. japonica during the flowering period. Advanced chemometric methods including autoGCMSDataAnal and AntDAS were used for the first time to resolve coeluted compounds in both GC-MS and UHPLC-HRMS. Based on the developed strategy, about 70 volatile compounds and 38 involatile compounds that were related to the flower quality of L. japonica were screened. Frequently analysis suggested that about 9 compounds can be used as markers for the quality evaluation of the flower quality.