Identification of phenolic metabolites in human urine after the intake of a functional food made from grape extract by a high resolution LTQ-Orbitrap-MS approach.

Grape pomace (GP) is known to be a rich source of polyphenols with biological activity which may be used as functional ingredients for the development of new health-promoting products. Numerous studies have reported that bioactive compounds may act through multiple mechanisms. In order to verify the oral absorption and metabolism of grape polyphenols, we performed a prospective, randomised and cross-over acute study in 12 volunteers with two interventions: 500mL of a functional beverage enriched with 200mL of GP and 500mL of a control beverage without GP. In this work, liquid chromatography coupled with an electrospray ionization hybrid linear ion trap quadrupole-Orbitrap-mass spectrometry (LC/ESI-LTQ-Orbitrap-MS) technique has been used to accurately identify phenolics in GP and human urine. In GP, 41 phenolic compounds were identified mainly procyanidins, phenolic acids and flavonols, and in human urine over 70 metabolites of phenolic compounds including microbiota metabolites, glucuronides and sulfate derivatives were detected. Overall, high resolution mass spectrometry (HR-MS) enhances the identification of a large variety of polyphenols and their metabolites with great mass accuracies for all molecular ions.

Identification of phenolic compounds in red wine extract samples and zebrafish embryos by HPLC-ESI-LTQ-Orbitrap-MS.

The zebrafish embryo is a highly interesting biological model with applications in different scientific fields, such as biomedicine, pharmacology and toxicology. In this study, we used liquid chromatography/electrospray ionisation-linear ion trap quadrupole-Orbitrap-mass spectrometry (HPLC/ESI-LTQ-Orbitrap-MS) to identify the polyphenol compounds in a red wine extract and zebrafish embryos. Phenolic compounds and anthocyanin metabolites were determined in zebrafish embryos previously exposed to the red wine extract. Compounds were identified by injection in a high-resolution system (LTQ-Orbitrap) using accurate mass measurements in MS, MS(2) and MS(3) modes. To our knowledge, this research constitutes the first comprehensive identification of phenolic compounds in zebrafish by HPLC coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry.