Biomarkers for cheese authentication by detailed and fast gas chromatographic profiling of triacylglycerol fatty acids.

Abstract

Unsaturated fatty acid isomers and odd- and branched-chain fatty acids (OBCFAs) in milk triacylglycerols (TAGs) can be quantitated using gas chromatography (GC), providing access to biomarkers of animal species, breeds, diet, geographic origin, and environmental conditions. Such analysis requires expensive cyanopropyl siloxane or ionic liquid columns of at least 50m in length, which increases the elution time. Aiming to use GC for cheese authentication and characterization while keeping the experiment time short and maintaining a good separation between fatty acid (FA) isomers, we considered using a 30m polyethylene glycol-2-nitroterephthalate column. The FAs thus quantitated allowed the discovery of specific biomarkers for the origins of cheese varieties highly consumed in several countries. In addition, the simple and multivariate correlations we found between FAs in the cheese TAG matrix were alternative means for characterization and authentication purposes.