Abstract:

Three-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy combined with second-order calibration method based on alternating trilinear decomposition(ATLD) algorithm was utilized to the determination of melatonin in functional food. When the number of spectral components was set to 2, the obtained content of melatonin in meiyitian^TM melatonin and vitamin B6 capsule(MYT) and nature-power melatonin tablets(NSB) were (3.074±0.019) mg/capsule and (1.649±0.059) mg/tablet, and the average spiked recoveries were (97.9±4.0)% and (103.4±2.7)%, respectively, which demonstrated the reliability and accuracy of the established method. Owing to the second-order advantage achieved by the proposed method, satisfactory results can also be obtained even in the presence of interference(s). Additionally, high sensitivity was achieved because of the use of fluorescence spectroscopy. Besides, the method was also validated by high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) with fluorescent detector, which is the conventional method for the determination of melatonin, and the results obtained by the two methods were compared by t-test and were found to be in good agreement with each other, but this method was environmentally friendly and easy. So the developed method can be an alternative method for the determination of melatonin and can be used to quality monitoring for functional food containing melatonin.

Key words: Three-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy, Second-order calibration, Alternating trilinear decomposition, Second-order advantage, Melatonin, Functional food