Determination of phenolic acids and flavonoids from Myrciaria cauliflora edible part employing vortex-assisted matrix solid-phase dispersion (VA-MSPD) and UHPLC-MS/MS

In the present study, for the first time, vortex-assisted matrix solid-phase dispersion (VA-MSPD) is used to determine phenolic compounds in the edible part of Myrciaria cauliflora combined with ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) analysis. Under the optimized extraction conditions, the VA-MSPD method used a small amount of sample (25 mg), C18 (100 mg) as a solid support, a small volume of methanol (6 mL) as elution solvent and reduced time of grinding and vortex agitation (90 s). The proposed method showed good linearity (r ≥ 0.99) for all compounds, with detection limits in the range of 0.9˗99 μg kg−1. The matrix effect was between ˗0.8 and +52 %. This method allowed the quantification of four phenolic acids (4-hydroxybenzoic acid, gallic acid, p-coumaric acid and ellagic acid) and four flavonoids (myricetin, (+)-catechin, naringenin and quercetin) in M. cauliflora edible part harvested in different years. Ellagic acid was found with the highest abundance ranging from 470 to 709 mg kg−1. These results support the high potential of VA-MSPD to be applied in the determination of the phenolic compounds of fruit matrices, as well as, requiring a low solvent volume, a small amount of sample and solid support and features easy handling and short analysis time.