Characterizing the Elemental Metabolome in Asparagus officinalis with Multielemental Speciation Analysis.

We report a multielemental and quantitative speciation analysis study with chromatographic inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS) detection involving four elements (sulfur, selenium, arsenic, and phosphorus) in Asparagus officinalis. The samples were locally purchased and labeled to originate from different regions in two continents. Major compounds were identified and quantified with confirmation based on chemical synthesis in pure form. Nontargeted analysis revealed significant quantitative and qualitative variation for the elemental metabolomes among samples, particularly sulfur and arsenic. Sharp contrast was observed in the diversity of the profiles between sulfur and selenium, providing insight into metabolism selectivity in Asparagus. Inorganic and methylated arsenic were both detected, but their ratios showed wide variation between samples. The present work shows the potential of multielemental speciation analysis with ICP-MS/MS as a novel dimension for food characterization based on studying heteroatom-tagged metabolome.