GC-MS Method Development for the Analyses of Thiophenes from Solvent Extracts of Tagetes patula L

The purpose of the present study was to develop GC-MS methods for the qualitative analyses of thiophenes and quantitative determination of 2,2':5',2 ''-terthiophene (a-terthienyl) from the solvent extracts of Tagetes patula L. hairy root cultures and field-grown plants. It was furthermore aimed to characterize the analytical parameters of these methods. Several injection techniques (split, splitless, pulsed splitless and temperature programmed pulsed splitless) were studied in order to achieve the best performance. The pulsed splitless injection combined with temperature programming provided highest signal response, best repeatability and peak shape. The split injection was not sensitive enough and the hot splitless methods had poor repeatability. For quantitative work, an internal standard calibration method was applied using selected ion monitoring detection. Validation studies proved that the global method had good repeatability and satisfactory recovery. The intact plant roots contained the highest amounts of alpha-terthienyl (590 +/- 11.1 mu g g(-1)) while the hairy root clone #TpA6 and #TpR had considerably diverse amounts (421 +/- 18.0 and 5.6 +/- 0.65 mu g g(-1), respectively).