Detection of Plant Hormones by Ion Mobility Spectrometry

Plant hormones (PHs) are signalling molecules produced within plants that influence plant growth, seed germination, fruit maturation and ripening and pathogen defence [1,2]. Hence, the quantitative analysis of the PHs and determination of their concentrations in different tissues is crucially important to understand the role of these molecules in physiological processes occurring in plants. Several analytical methods have been developed for analysis of PHs in different parts of fruits and plants using LC and GC, in combination with mass spectrometry.

In this work, an analytical method was developed to exploit the advantages of solid phase microextraction (SMPE), Multicapillary column (MCC), and ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) for fast and sensitive analysis of PHs released from plants.