Applications of Liquid-Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry in Natural Products Research: Tropane Alkaloids as a Case Study

In the simplest form of our research, we are trying to discover new molecules in plants. Plants are chemically complex, and some of these chemicals may be medicinally useful. We're especially interested in finding new alkaloids, which are certain molecules that contain nitrogen.

Recently, we have so many new different alkaloid instruments and techniques available, so people discover more and more new molecules every day. With these instruments, we can answer questions like what chemicals are present, when are they present, and what part of the plant can they be found? Mass spectrometry as an analytical technique has really improved over the past 50 years.

Instruments are more powerful, less expensive, and have higher resolution. And these techniques allow us to not only identify more plant molecules like alkaloids but also be more sure in our identification. This method is fast and sensitive.

We were able to collect a full set of data on nightshade plants containing many tropane alkaloids in 60 to 90 minutes, and assign proposed structures to even though low upon those alkaloids. We're very interested in developing tandem mass spectrometry-based filtering methods for other classes of alkaloids and using methods like these to study how plant chemistry differs between different species, different plant parts, and different growth stages.