Comparative Analysis of Essential Bioactive Components of Oils Originating from Three Chinese Loess Plateau Wild Crops

Abstract

AbstractThe ability of soil and water conservation crops to resist stress is closely related to their abundance of lipid‐soluble chemical components. This study systematically evaluated the composition and content of fatty acids, sterols, squalene, and tocopherol in oils extracted from three varieties of crops growing on the Chinese Loess Plateau with extreme environments. The dominant fatty acids in the wild seabuckthorn pulp oil were oleic acid (29.73%), palmitic acid (26.83%), and palmitoleic acid (25.71%), and those in wild seabuckthorn seed oil were linoleic acid (42.29%), α‐linolenic acid (20.65%), and oleic acid (18.94%). The most abundant fatty acids in wild elaeagnusmollis seed oil were oleic acid (43.29%), linoleic acid (35.93%), and α‐linolenic acid (7.00%). Wild yellowhorn seed oil was rich in linoleic acid (34.14%), oleic acid (25.99%), and erucic acid (8.76%). Seabuckthorn seed oil had the highest levels of total sterols (619.33 mg/100 g), followed by seabuckthorn pulp oil (606.10 mg/100 g), yellowhorn seed oil (249.46 mg/100 g), and elaeagnusmollis seed oil (224.01 mg/100 g). However, the squalene content was highest in elaeagnusmollis seed oil (68.06 mg/100 g) and similarly low in yellowhorn seed oil (9.81 mg/100 g), seabuckthorn pulp oil (4.62 mg/100 g) and seabuckthorn seed oil (4.71 mg/100 g). In addition, seabuckthorn pulp oil had the highest tocopherol content (179.92 mg/100 g), followed by seabuckthorn seed oil (130.57 mg/100 g), elaeagnusmollis seed oil (85.87 mg/100 g), and yellowhorn seed oil (45.44 mg/100 g). This study provides favorable data supporting biomass resource utilization and organic synthesis of bioactive raw chemical composition.