Abstract
Sarcocornia ambigua is a perennial glasswort, native of South America and a potential new seed-oil crop and forage for direct irrigation with salt water. Small seeds develop inside fertile segments of its cylindrical leafless shoots and, at the harvest, seeds are typically mixed with remnant cellulose material difficult to separate. This work evaluated different extraction methods and the composition of total esterified fatty acids in a meal of ground fertile shoots of S. ambigua, seeking for an alternative primary matter and larger yield of total lipids. The highest lipid yield was obtained with a chloroform:methanol mixture (2:1)(v/v) (5.2% of dry weight). The most abundant polyunsaturated fatty acids in the meal were linoleic acid (C18:2; 21.4%) and oleic acid (C18:1; 18.3%). Fifty six percent of the lipids in S. ambigua meal were saturated and palmitic acid (C16:0) was the main fraction (19.8%). Long-chain fatty acids (≥ C20) represented 29.5% of the lipids. Most abundant long-chain fatty acids were behenic acid (C22:0; 7.1%), lignoceric acid (C24:0; 5.3%) and montanic acid (C28:0; 4.0%). The percentage of saturated lipids in S. ambigua meal was higher than that of vegetable oils with a MUFA nutritional profile and some of these lipids have known bioactive properties.
Highlights
S. bigelovii is an annual glasswort commercially cultivated in the United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Eritrea and Pakistan, for seed oil production (Glenn et al 1998, El-Mallah et al 1994, Anwar et al 2002, Zerai et al 2010), and for forage, as a by-products rich in protein and carbohydrates used for feeding chickens (Attia et al 1997), fish (Belal and AlDosari 1999) and sheep (Kraidees et al 1998), and in addition to being used in the human diet as well (Ventura et al 2011)
A larger amount of total lipids per hectare of S. ambigua crop might be obtained from the utilization of fertile shoot segments as primary matter, rather than only by seed oil extraction
Seven methods were used in this study to extract the lipids from the meal of ground fertile shoots of S. ambigua (Table I)
Summary
Sarcocornia ambigua (Michx.) Alonso & Crespo (subfamily Salicornioideae, family Chenopo diaceae) is the most widely distributed perennial species in South America of a genus of small succulent halophytic shrubs, common in coastal marshes, mangroves and salt deserts (Isacch et al 2006, Alonso and Crespo 2008), but it is a potential new seed-oil crop and forage for direct the results obtained with the closely related species Salicornia bigelovii (Clark 1994, El-Mallah et al 1994, Anwar et al 2002, Zerai et al 2010). Seeds are typically mixed with debris such as soil and remnant cellulose material, which are difficult to separate It results in a clear reduction of seed oil yield and in an increased effort with preprocessing to remove debris. Lipids can be found in wax esters (surface shoots and leaves), glycolipids (membranes of photosynthetic tissues), phospholipids (in cellular membranes) and triglycerides (stored mostly in seeds and plant tissues) (Misra et al 1987, Ivanova et al 2000, Kulis et al 2010), all feasible for synthetic biofuel and supplementation of animal feeding (Kulis et al 2010). A larger amount of total lipids per hectare of S. ambigua crop might be obtained from the utilization of fertile shoot segments (with seeds) as primary matter, rather than only by seed oil extraction. Since the polarity of lipids affects the solubility in solvents, it is necessary to find the most efficient extraction method to dissolve the non-polar and polar lipids present in plant tissue
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