A modified material‐saving method system for detecting and analysing fatty acids in fish using gas chromatography

Abstract

A modified method system for the determination of fatty acids in micro fish samples was established, including lipid extraction, column selection, chromatographic condition optimization and data analysis. Firstly, we compared the methods of tissue disruption with freeze-drying and liquid nitrogen grinding, the amount of fresh sample can be less to 0.1–0.3 g by liquid nitrogen grinding. Then, in order to reduce the detection time of GC, we compared the performance of two GC columns and optimized gas chromatography conditions of HP-88. The recommended analysis time was 43 min with the speed of 1.4 ml/min and split ratio of 10:1 for HP-88. Besides, to analyse the composition and content of fatty acids accurately, we compared relative quantitative and semi-quantitative methods. Lastly, using the tissues of common carp (Cyprinus carpio) in different development periods as materials, we tested the effect of the method system. Taken together, in this study, a material-saving method system for measuring fatty acids in fish tissues was presented, which can be easily applied to the determination of fatty acid composition in small size fish and minor tissues in various aquatic organisms, and also provide technical support for the study of the lipid metabolic mechanism in aquatic animals.