A Study on Triacylglycerol Composition and the Structure of High-Oleic Rapeseed Oil

Abstract

The composition of fatty acids in triacylglycerides (TAGs) and their position on the glycerol backbone determine the nutritional value of vegetable oil. In this study, gas chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) were used to analyze the composition and distribution of fatty acids in TAGs of different rapeseed oils. Our results show the content of oleic acid in high-oleic-acid rapeseed oil to be about 80%. In terms of the number of acyl carbon atoms (CN), TAGs with CN52–C54 were most abundant, with a maximum concentration at CN54 (80%). The main type of TAG was oleic-oleic-oleic (OOO), accounting for 71.75%, while oleic-oleic-linoleic (OOL) accounted for 7.56%, oleic-oleic-linolenic (OOLn) accounted for 4.81%, and stearic-oleic-oleic (SOO) accounted for 4.74%. Oleic acid in high-oleic-acid rapeseed oil was distributed in the following order of preference: sn-2 > sn-1/3. In high-erucic-acid rapeseed oil, however, oleic acid was enriched at the sn-1/3. These data show that the content of oleic acid can be as high as about 80% in high-oleic-acid material. This finding suggests that high-oleic-acid rapeseed oil has high nutritional value.