Saponin composition comparison of black ginseng and white ginseng by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry combined with multivariate statistical analysis

Black ginseng (BG) is one type of ginseng product, which is produced from fresh ginseng by steaming and drying several times. To characterize the differences in saponin composition of BG and white ginseng (WG), the ultra-high performance liquid chromatography Quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS) was used to analyze the ginseng samples. A total of 53 saponins were successfully identified, and the possible transformation pathways of several ginsenosides were described. Multivariate statistical analysis methods were used to perform the pattern recognition and further to select the marker compounds of samples. Twenty ginsenosides were considered to contribute most to the sample classification, six of which including Rg3, Rk1, Rh4, Rs3, Rs5, and Rk2 increased significantly in BG, while the other fourteen ginsenosides were greatly elevated in WG. The changes of ginsenoside in BG and WG were characterized by UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS, which is of great significance for its quality control and effect evaluation.