The study of the constituents and source of toxicants in poisonous honey

Abstract

A novel method for non-target screening of toxicants in poisonous honey was established in this study. Poisonous honey and nontoxic honey were contrastive detected using liquid chromatography quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry and analyzed by Mass Profiler Professional Software. 4 poisonous alkaloids were screened out and confirmed by comparison with reference compounds. In order to investigate the source of these poisonous alkaloids, 6 poisonous alkaloids, ubiquitous in Gelsemium elegan, from honey, honeybees, pollen in honeycomb and different organs of Gelsemium elegan, were quantified by liquid chromatography triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry. The results showed that alkaloids composition characteristics in honey, honeybees, and pollen were similar to those in the flower and bud of Gelsemium elegan and significant different from those in leave, stem and root. This result demonstrated that poisonous alkaloids in honey were come from the gathering honey process. This strategy provided an efficient and rapid method for non-target screening of toxicants in food.

Keywords: Alkaloids; Gelsemium elegan; HPLC-Q-TOF/MS; HPLC-QQQ-MS; Honey poisoning.