A method for the rapid determination of 15 functional components in sweet potato leaves by ultra high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) was established. The samples were extracted with 80% (v/v) methanol aqueous solution, and then separated on a C18 column (100 mm×2.1 mm, 1.8 μm) with gradient elution. The mobile phases were acetonitrile and 0.15% (v/v) formic acid aqueous solution. The multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was used to detect the molecular ion peak of each component in electrospray ionization (ESI) source and negative ion scan mode. The results showed that the good linear relationships for the 15 components were obtained with correlation coefficients (r) ranging from 0.9995 to 0.9998. The recoveries of all the components ranged from 82.2% to 131.4% with relative standard deviations of 3.6%-8.3%. The method is simple, sensitive, and is suitable for the rapid analysis of the functional components in sweet potato leaves.
Keywords: functional components; sweet potato leaves; ultra high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS).