Lipid analysis of three special nervonic acid resources in China

Abstract

Nervonic acid plays an important role in nutrition and function of the human body. Malania oleifera, Acer truncatum and Xanthoceras sorbifolium are China’s unique woody plant rich in nervonic acid in seed oil. This study aims to investigate the lipid composition of these 3 special resources. Their fatty acids were detected by gas chromatography coupled with flame detector (GC-FID). Triglycerides (TAGs) and phospholipids (PLs) were detected by shotgun-mass spectrometry (shotgun-MS). Results showed that M. oleifera oil presented the highest level of nervonic acid (46.20 ​± ​0.22%) among the 3 oils. Seeds oil of A. truncatum and X. sorbifolium had 3.53 ​± ​0.20% and 1.83 ​± ​0.21% nervonic acid respectively. 53 species of TAGs and 15 species of PLs were identified in M. oleifera oil, with PLs content of 499.94 ​± ​22.34 ​μg/g. In A. truncatum oil, PL and TAG species were twice more than those in M. oleifera oil, and its’ content of PLs was 76.27 ​± ​3.21 ​μg/g. In X. sorbifolium oil, 75 TAGs and 34 ​PLs were detected, with the lowest PLs at 23.84 ​± ​0.17 ​μg/g. The results demonstrated that these 3 vegetable oils have great potential to become nervonic acid supplements for human health.

Keywords

• Nervonic acid
• Malania oleifera
• Acer truncatum
• Xanthoceras sorbifolium
• Lipid analysis