High-performance liquid chromatography in the separation of triglycerides from complex animal fats.

Abstract

Triglycerides are at the same time, one of the most abundant and complex lipid fraction in the nature. For this reason, it is esential to determine their molecular species composition, as well as to know the stereospecific position in which the fatty acids are located, in order to characterize animal fats and vegetable oils. The most commonly employed technique for this objective is high-performance liquid chromatography, in general using reversed phase columns. In the present article we describe the operative conditions employed nowadays in order to achieve the optimum resolution for the triglyceride chromatographic peaks, and also the present situation of the knowledge in the separation of the molecular species of complex mixtures of triglycerides, such as milk fat, fish oil and hepatic fat, which are of importance in the industrial sector and human nutrition.