Procyanidins are polymeric flavan-3-ones occurring in many plants with antioxidant and other beneficial bioactivities. They are composed of catechin and epicatechin monomeric units connected by single carbon-carbon B-type linkages or A-type linkages containing both carbon-carbon and carbon-oxygen-carbon bonds. Their polymeric structure makes analysis of procyanidin mixtures always difficult. Evaluation of procyanidins according to degree of polymerization (DP) using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is time-consuming and at best has resolved polymeric families up to DP-17. To expedite studies of procyanidins, the utility of positive ion electrospray ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) was investigated for the rapid separation and characterization of procyanidins in mixtures. Applying IM-MS to analyse structurally defined standards containing up to five subunits, procyanidins could be resolved in less than 6 ms not only by degree of polymerization but also by linkage type. A-type procyanidins could be resolved from B-type and both could be at least partially resolved from mixed-type procyanidins of the same DP. IM-MS separated higher order procyanidins with DP of at least 24 from extracts of cranberry. As DP increased, the abundances of multiply-charged procyanidins also increased. During IM-MS of ions of similar m/z, the ion drift times decreased inversely with increasing charge state. Therefore, IM-MS was shown to separate mixtures of procyanidins containing at least 24 interconnected subunits in less than 16 ms, not only according to DP, but also according to linkage type between subunits and charge state.

中文翻译：

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离子淌度质谱用于原花青素的分离和分析。

原花青素是存在于许多具有抗氧化剂和其他有益生物活性的植物中的聚合性黄烷-3-酮。它们由通过包含碳-碳和碳-氧-碳键的单个碳-碳B型键或A型键连接的儿茶素和表儿茶素单体单元组成。它们的聚合物结构使原花青素混合物的分析总是很困难。使用高效液相色谱（HPLC）根据聚合度（DP）进行原花青素的评估非常耗时，而且充其量只能解决高达DP-17的聚合物家族。为了加快对原花青素的研究，研究了正离子电喷雾离子迁移率质谱（IM-MS）用于快速分离和表征混合物中原花青素的特性。应用IM-MS分析包含多达五个亚基的结构定义的标准品，原花青素不仅可以通过聚合度而且可以通过键合类型在不到6毫秒的时间内解析。A型原花青素可以从B型中分离出来，并且都可以至少部分地从同一DP的混合型原花青素中分离出来。IM-MS从蔓越莓提取物中分离出DP至少为24的高阶原花青素。随着DP的增加，多电荷原花青素的丰度也增加了。在m / z相似的离子的IM-MS过程中，离子漂移时间与电荷状态的增加成反比地减少。因此，不仅根据DP，而且根据亚基之间的键合类型和电荷状态，IM-MS已显示在不到16 ms的时间内分离出包含至少24个相互连接的亚基的原花青素的混合物。