Non-Targeted Ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography-High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) Fingerprints for the Chemometric Characterization and Classification of Turmeric and Curry Samples

In this work, non-targeted ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) fingerprints obtained by C18 reversed-phase chromatography were proposed as sample chemical descriptors for the characterization and classification of turmeric and curry samples. A total of 21 turmeric and 9 curry commercially available samples were analyzed in triplicate after extraction with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The results demonstrated the feasibility of non-targeted UHPLC-HRMS fingerprints for sample classification, showing very good classification capabilities by partial least squares regression-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), with 100% classification rates being obtained by PLS-DA when randomly selected samples were processed as &ldquo
unknown&rdquo
ones. Besides, turmeric curcuma species (Curcuma longa vs. Curcuma zedoaria) and turmeric Curcuma longa varieties (Madras, Erodes, and Alleppey) discrimination was also observed by PLS-DA when using the proposed fingerprints as chemical descriptors. As a conclusion, non-targeted UHPLC-HRMS fingerprinting is a suitable methodology for the characterization, classification, and authentication of turmeric and curry samples, without the requirement of using commercially available standards for quantification nor the necessity of metabolite identification.