Chemical Methods (Lipids)

Abstract

The majority of research papers on the chemistry of insect cuticular lipids have been published in the decade of the 1970s. The analytical methods used in the investigations are mostly based on the application to lipids of physicochemical techniques of separation and identification, chiefly the various forms of chromatography and spectroscopy. These applications were introduced in the 10–15 years after 1950. Before then, the techniques of organic chemistry required large samples of material and enabled only very broad characterization of lipid components. The classical methods involved saponification or other chemical degradation, followed by investigation of the fragments. The complicated mixtures that constitute most naturally occurring lipids were generally not amenable to investigation, and the samples available from biological research were almost always far too small to make any progress at all. With the introduction of gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) and, later, thin-layer chromatography (TLC), the situation was transformed. Separation of lipid components into chemical classes became possible on submilligram samples, and the constituents of each class could be separated further and identified.KeywordsPolar LipidCuticular HydrocarbonSteryl EsterLipid SampleCuticular LipidThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.