High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with ultra violet photodiode array (LC/UV-DAD) and mass spectrometry (LC/MS) detection has been used routinely for the chemical screening of crude extracts of Gentianaceae species. The recent progress realised in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) has given a new impulse to the coupling of this detection method with liquid chromatography (LC/NMR) and several LC/NMR probes are now commercially available. In order to evaluate the potential of this coupled technique as a complement to LC/UV/MS for the on-line identification of plant metabolites, two characteristic Gentianaceae species were analysed, namely Swertia calycina and Gentiana ottonis. On-line UV, MS, MS/MS 1H-NMR and 1H-1H-NMR spectra of the major constituents of these two plants allowed their identification directly within the crude extracts. The potential and the limitations of LC/NMR used together with LC/UV/MS for the on-line analysis of plant metabolites are discussed.
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Wolfender et al. (1997) studied this question.