Study on effects of sulfur fumigation on chemical constituents of Chrysanthemum morifolium cv. Boju.

A comprehensively comparison of the chemical profiles between sun-drying BJ (NBJ) and sulfur-fumigated BJ (SBJ) was conducted by HPLC analysis and the discrepant peaks were identified or tentatively assigned by HPLC-ESI-MSn. A total of 32 chemical components were used for qualitative comparison. Meanwhile, a quantitative comparison of BJwere conducted by HPLC analysis and determining seven compounds from 3 NBJ and 3 SBJ samples dramatic chemical changes were found. After sulfur fumigation, the contents of flavonoids glycosides and phenolic acids were remarkably reduced, but the contents of flavonoids aglycones were significantly increased. Multivariate statistics, including principle component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) were used to investigate the potential damaging effect of sulfur-fumigating process. The PCA score plots showed six samples were clearly classified into the sun-drying and sulfur-fumigating groups. And according to VIP >1, the most important chemical markers were apigenin, luteolin and 3,5-dicaffeoylquninic acid which could be used to distinguish NBJ and SBJ samples. Combining the results of qualitative and quantitative analysis, it showed that the sulfur fumigation has a significant effect on BJ.