Development of High-Performance Liquid Chromatography–Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry for the Simultaneous Characterization and Quantitative Analysis of Gingerol-Related Compounds in Ginger Products

Liquid chromatography–time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-TOF/MS) was established for the simultaneous separation, identification, and quantification of gingerol-related compounds in ginger products. The established method has been shown to provide a satisfactory linearity (r > 0.999) in a wide range (5–5000 ng/mL), low limits of detection and quantification, high precision, and inter- and intraday repeatability. The detection sensitivity of gingerols and shogaols by TOF/MS was 70–100 times higher than conventional UV detection at 288 nm. In this study, 19 ginerol-related compounds in the samples were identified and quantified by the established LC-TOF/MS method. The dried ginger powder products contained the highest quantity of gingerol-related compounds (7126.3–13789.0 μg/g), followed by fresh ginger products (2007.9–2790.0 μg/g), powdered ginger tea products (77.29–81.75 μg/g), and hot water ginger extracts (54.59–123.23 μg/mL). Shogaols were not found in fresh gingers. This paper represents the first report on the LC-TOF/MS analysis for the simultaneous characterization and quantification of gingerol-related compounds in ginger products.