Analysis of lecithin in cosmetics by reversed-phase liquid chromatography/electrospray tandem mass spectrometry

✍ Scribed by Myoung Hee Lee; Jong Shin Yoo; Gae Ho Lee

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 103 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0951-4198
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0231(19981130)12:22<1709::aid-rcm396>3.0.co;2-t

✦ Synopsis

A rapid, sensitive and selective method by reversed-phase liquid chromatography (LC) with electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry (MS) was employed for the determination of lecithin in a cosmetic raw material for quality control of the product formulation. The mixture of the phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidyl-ethanolamine, and phosphatidylinositol in lecithin was separated using aqueous methanolacetonitrile solvent with a reversed-phase LC column, and detected as forms of pseudomolecular ions. Using this LC/ESI-MS technique, simultaneous separation and detection of phospholipid classes and molecular species within each class were achieved for the first time. Additionally informative fragmentation patterns were obtained by employing LC/ESI-MS/MS in both positive and negative ionization modes to identify these fatty acid chains and polar head groups in each molecular species of the phospholipids.