Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Flidersiachromones in Three Agarwood Samples by HPLC-MS/MS

HPLC/ESI/MS2 was used in the qualitative and quantitative analysis of flidersiachromones(FTPECs) in three agarwood samples of Aquilaria sinensis, including an artificial holing agarwood, a wild agarwood, and a high quality agarwood named “Qi Nan”. From these three agarwood samples, totally forty-six FTPECs were identified, and twenty-five of which were tentatively identified by the analysis of MS fragmentation ions, the others were indentified via comparing the retention time and MS fragmentation ions of them with those of the reference compounds. Besides, quantitative determination of five characteristic FTPECs(F14, F16 and F18—F20) in the three agarwoods was carried out, and it was found that the absolute content of each compound of these five FTPECs showed positive correlation with the quality of agarwood samples. Due to the wide distribution of four of these FTPECs(F16 and F18—F20) in the chemical constituents of agarwood, it is suggested that the total absolute content of these four FTPECs may be set as one of basis for agarwood quality evaluation.