Simultaneous Determination of Plant Endogenous Hormones in Green Mustard by Liquid Chromatography- Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Abstract This study described a method for simultaneous determination of 14 kinds of plant endogenous hormones in Brassica Juncea (L) Czern, including indole-3-acetic acid, indole-3-butyric acid, indole-3-carboxylic acid, 3-indolepropionic acid, gibberellin A3, gibberellin A4, gibberellin A7, N6-benzyladenine, N6-isopentenyladenine, isopentenyladenosine, trans-zeatin, kinetin, dihydrozeatin riboside and trans-zeatin riboside. Vegetable tissues were extracted in order with 2-propanol/water/concentrated HCl (2:1:0.002, V/V) and dichloromethane, respectively. The method showed good linearity for all 14 plant endogenous hormones, with regression coefficients (R2) > 0.9961. The limits of detection ranged from 0.2 ng/g to 32.6 ng/g, the overall average of recoveries of plant endogenous hormones ranged from 81.71% to 105.74%, and the relative standard deviation was less than 20%. The proposed method is fast, simple, sensitive, accurate, and efficient for the analysis of plant endogenous hormones in green mustards, which could be the basis to develop methods for determination of plant growth regulators in other vegetables as agricultural products.