Simultaneous determination of multiple phytohormones in tomato by ionic liquid-functionalized carbon fibers-based solid-phase microextraction coupled with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

Phytohormones are interrelated by synergistic or antagonistic crosstalk and play important roles in the regulation of plant growth and development. In order to understand the interaction between phytohormones in the plant physiological network, it is necessary to determine trace levels of multiple phytohormones simultaneously in a complex matrix. Here, we synthesized ionic liquids containing different functional groups and modified the surface of carbon fibers with them. Based on these carbon fibers-ionic liquid (CFs-IL) materials, a solid phase microextraction method was developed to enable the simultaneous extraction of phytohormones. The adsorption specificity of multiple phytohormones was studied by identifying the hydrophobic, electrostatic, and π-π interactions, as well as hydrogen bonds, which favor simultaneous extraction of the relevant acidic, alkaline and neutral phytohormones by improving compatibility. The proposed method, coupled with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, was applied to the simultaneous determination of 13 acidic, alkaline and neutral phytohormones in tomato. The limits of quantification were found to be in the range of 0.32–54.05 ng mL−1 and 4.6–185.8 pg mL−1, respectively, when measured by QQQ and Q-TOF. All of the relative recoveries were in the range of 94.40–113.37% with RSDs ≤15.36% (n = 3) for spiked tomato samples. This method is expected to be widely applied to multiple phytohormones analysis for in-depth researches concerning the physiological networks of plants. [Display omitted] •A novel CFs-IL-SPME method was developed for simultaneous determination of multiple phytohormones.•Several CFs-IL with different functional groups were synthesized on structural features of phytohormones.•The extraction performance of diverse CFs-IL on multiple phytohormones was studied with adsorption specificity.•Multiple phytohormones in tomato sample were simultaneously quantified by CFs-IL-LC-MS/MS in one step extraction.