Determination of falcarinol in carrot (Daucus carota L.) genotypes using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry

A new analytical method for the determination of falcarinol [(Z)-heptadeca-1,9-diene-4,6-diyn-3-ol] in carrot root samples has been developed and validated. The method consists of accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) of lyophilised carrot root samples with ethyl acetate and LC–MS analysis of the extracts. Falcarinol was determined by extracting the main ion species generated in the ESI positive mode, m/z 268 [M+H–H2O+MeCN]+, from the full MS chromatogram. Quantitation was performed using a falcarinol calibration curve (correlation coefficient 0.9975) as an external standard and pelargonic acid vanillylamide as an internal standard. The method showed good precision with interday and intraday variation of less than 4% and high recovery (average recovery rate 97.9%). LOD (S/N = 3) and LOQ (S/N = 10) were 2.5 and 7 ng, respectively. Using this method, 27 different carrot genotypes grown and harvested under the same conditions were analyzed, and falcarinol contents ranging from 0.70 to 4.06 mg/100 g fresh weight were determined.