Abstract
Oilseed crops are one of the most important sources of vegetable oils for food and industry. Nutritional and technical properties of vegetable oil are primarily determined by its fatty acid (FA) composition. The content and composition of FAs in plants are commonly determined using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GS-MS) or gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID) techniques. In the present work, we applied ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) technique to FA profiling of sunflower and rapeseed seeds and compared this method with the GC-FID technique. GC-FID detected 11 FAs in sunflower and 13 FAs in rapeseed, while UPLC-MS appeared to be more sensitive, detecting about 2.5 times higher numbers of FAs in both plants. In addition to even-chain FAs, UPLC-MS was able to detect odd-chain FAs. The longest FA detected using GC-FID was an FA with 24 carbon atoms, whereas UPLC-MS could reveal the presence of longer FAs with the tails of up to 28 carbon atoms. Based on our results, we may conclude that UPLC-MS has great potential to be used for the assessment of FA profiles of oil crops.
Highlights
Vegetable oils have been used by humans since ancient times
We compared the application of gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID) coupled with hexane extraction and two ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) based approaches: 1:5 dilution in the buffer system with formic acid (UPLC-5) and 1:400 dilution in the buffer system with acetic acid (UPLC-400) for fatty acid (FA) profiling in sunflower and rapeseed, both using MTBE extraction
All 11 FAs detected in sunflower and 13 FAs detected in rapeseed were identified using UPLC-MS
Summary
The main components of the vegetable oil are triglycerides (about 95%) (Thomas, Matthäus & Fiebig, 2015). They are composed of three fatty acids (FAs) attached to glycerol by ester bonds. FA profile is an important characteristic of the vegetable oil (Zhang et al, 2014). Ultra-performance liquid chromatographymass spectrometry for precise fatty acid profiling of oilseed crops. Oilseed crops are one of the most important sources of vegetable oils for food and industry. The identification of FAs appears to be of special importance since nutritional and technical properties of the oil extracted from these crops are primarily determined by its FAs composition. Unsaturated fatty acids contribute to decreasing cholesterol levels in blood reducing the risk of heart diseases (Grundy, 1986)
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