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The faba bean is one of the earliest domesticated crops, with both economic and environmental benefits. Like most legumes, faba beans are high in protein, and can be used to contribute to a balanced diet, or as a meat substitute. However, they also produce the anti-nutritional compounds, vicine and convicine (v-c), that when enzymatically degraded into reactive aglycones can potentially lead to hemolytic anemia or favism. Current methods of analysis use LC-UV, but are only suitable at high concentrations, and thus lack the selectivity and sensitivity to accurately quantitate the low-v-c genotypes currently being developed. We have developed and fully validated a rapid high-throughput LC-MS method for the analysis of v-c in faba beans by optimizing the extraction protocol and assessing the method of linearity, limit of detection, limit of quantitation, accuracy, precision and matrix effects. This method uses 10-times less starting material; removes the use of buffers, acids and organic chemicals; and improves precision and accuracy when compared to current methods.

The high-throughput quantitation of cannabinoids is important for the cannabis industry. As medicinal products increase, and research into compounds that have pharmacological benefits increase, and the need to quantitate more than just the main cannabinoids becomes more important. This study aims to provide a rapid, high-throughput method for cannabinoid quantitation using a liquid chromatography triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer (LC-QQQ-MS) with an ultraviolet diode array detector (UV-DAD) for 16 cannabinoids: CBDVA, CBDV, CBDA, CBGA, CBG, CBD, THCV, THCVA, CBN, CBNA, THC, Δ8-THC, CBL, CBC, THCA-A and CBCA. Linearity, limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantitation (LOQ), accuracy, precision, recovery and matrix effect were all evaluated. The validated method was used to determine the cannabinoid concentration of four different Cannabis sativa strains and a low THC strain, all of which have different cannabinoid profiles. All cannabinoids eluted within five minutes with a total analysis time of eight minutes, including column re-equilibration. This was twice as fast as published LC-QQQ-MS methods mentioned in the literature, whilst also covering a wide range of cannabinoid compounds.

Current methods for measuring the abundance of proteogenic amino acids in plants require derivatisation, extended run times, very sensitive pH adjustments of the protein hydrolysates, and the use of buffers in the chromatographic phases. Here, we describe a fast liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) method for the determination of amino acids that requires only three steps: hydrolysis, neutralisation, and sample dilution with a borate buffer solution for pH and retention time stability. The method shows excellent repeatability (repeated consecutive injections) and reproducibility (repeated hydrolysis) in the amino acid content, peak area, and retention time for all the standard amino acids. The chromatographic run time is 20 min with a reproducibility and repeatability of