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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.

Sec. Plant Metabolism and Chemodiversity

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1659907

This article is part of the Research TopicUnraveling the Metabolic Diversity of Phytochemical-Rich Plants: Integrative Metabolomics ApproachesView all articles

Development of a UHPLC-MS Method to Avoid the In-source Dissociation Interference in Characterization of Crocins from Buddlejae Flos and Its Dyeing Yellow Rice

Provisionally accepted
  • 1State Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndrome, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
  • 2Chinese Medicine Guangdong Laboratory, Zhuhai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Buddlejae flos, the flower bud of Buddleja officinalis Maxim., has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to promote eye health and as a yellow food dye for cooking rice in China. Crocins are a class of essential pharmacological ingredients and edible pigments in Buddlejae flos. However, misidentification and inaccurate quantification often occur in ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS) analysis of crocins in complex samples due to in-source dissociation and matrix effects. To avoid these interferences, we developed a UHPLC-MS approach by optimizing the chromatographic separation. In the present work, our approach facilitated the identification of crocin isomers that are usually masked by in-source dissociation species, expanding the number of detected crocins and derivatives to 28 in Buddlejae flos. Additionally, our strategy significantly enhanced the sensitivity of the UHPLC-MS method for detecting crocins in complex samples. Moreover, we performed UHPLC fingerprint analysis of 21 batches of Buddlejae flos to evaluate the geographical regionality of crocins biosynthesis. Furthermore, comparative quantification of crocins among Buddlejae flos, Gardenia fruit, and saffron reveals significant differences in the percentage of various types of crocins. The improved approach provides an informative and reliable profile of crocins in Buddlejae flos and yellow rice, which is promising for enhancing the quality control of Buddlejae flos and for potential utilization in the synthetic biology of crocins.

Keywords: UHPLC-MS, In-source dissociation interference, Crocins, Buddlejae flos, Yellow rice

Received: 04 Jul 2025; Accepted: 03 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Cheng, Mi, Jiang, Li, Zhong and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Zhixia Chen, chenzx116@163.com

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