Rapid Cinnamon Metabolite Profiling

Dried finely pulverized cinnamon specimens (10 mg) were extracted by adding 2 mL 70% MeOH, containing 10 μg mL ⁻¹ umbelliferone as an internal standard sonicated for 20 min with frequent shaking, then centrifuged at 12,000× g for 10 min to remove debris. The filtered extract through a 0.22 μm filter was subjected to solid-phase extraction using a C₁₈ cartridge (Sep-Pack, Waters, Milford, MA, USA) as previously described [87 (link)]. Cinnamon bark methanol extracts (2 μL) were injected on an HSS T3 column (100 × 1.0 mm, particle size 1.8 μm; Waters, Milford, MA, USA) installed on an ACQUITY UPLC system (Waters, Milford, MA, USA) equipped with a 6540 Agilent Ultra-High-Definition (UHD) Accurate-Mass Q-TOF-LC-MS (Palo Alto, CA, USA) coupled to an ESI interface, operated in positive or negative ion mode under the exact conditions of our previous work [56 (link)]. Characterization of metabolites was performed using their UV–VIS spectra (220–600 nm), exact masses, in addition to MS² in both ionization modes, RT data, and reference literature and searching the phytochemical dictionary of natural products [88 ].