LAUSR

BACKGROUND Chrysanthemum is one of the most important and popular ornamentals over the world. Chrysanthemum drink is a type of traditional healthy drinks like Chinese tea. Due to the differences in the chemical compositions, different chrysanthemum varieties have different medicinal effect on human health. Thus, the identification of different chrysanthemum varieties is very important and necessary. This study aims to distinguish seven chrysanthemum varieties which are widely used in China. Firstly, total lipids were obtained from chrysanthemums. After that, lipid profiles were characterized by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography hyphenated with a Quadrupole-Exactive High Resolution-Accurate Mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HR-AM/MS/MS). RESULTS 163 lipid molecular species from 17 types of lipid classes in seven varieties chrysanthemums were determined. Principal component analysis indicated that 3 lipid molecules, such as LPE (18:2), LPE (16:0) and PA (18:2/18:3) (VIP > 3, P < 0.001) can be used as potential biomarkers to distinguish seven chrysanthemum varieties. Hierarchical cluster analysis showed that the lipid molecular profiles of Gongju were most similar to Jinzijianju, follwing Huaibaiju, Boju, Hangbaiju, Chuju and Fubaiju. CONCLUSION This comprehensive analysis provided a new method to identify the chrysanthemum varieties through the perspective of lipidomics combined with chemometrics. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.