Abstract
The fatty acid (FA) composition of photosynthetic tissue differs from that in other plant or
animal tissues. In leaves, the lipid fraction constitutes less than 10% of the dry weight and is
mostly located in the chloroplasts. An extraction solvent should dissolve polar lipids readily, but
should also overcome interactions between the lipids and the tissue matrix. A mixture of
chloroform/methanol (C/M) is commonly used. However, less toxic alternative methods such as
hexane/isopropanol (H/I) and ethanol (E) have been suggested. In this preliminary study we
compared the effectiveness of these three methods which are used as standard extraction
protocols for FA analysis of plant material at three different European Universities. C/M
extraction gave the highest total FA content and H/I the lowest, suggesting that C/M is indeed
the best general-purpose lipid extraction solvent. Significant differences were also observed for
FA composition including the ratio of saturated to unsaturated FA indicating selectivity of the
various solvents in extracting different individual FA. Further and more detailed investigations
are required to confirm this hypothesis
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Current Advances in the Biochemistry and Cell Biology of Plant Lipids. Proceedings of the 17th Int Symp on Plant Lipids, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA, July 2006 |
| Editors | C. Benning, J. Ohlrogge |
| Place of Publication | Salt Lake City |
| Publisher | Aardvark Global Publishing Company |
| Pages | 190-194 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781427619655 |
| Publication status | Published - 2008 |
| Event | Proceedings of the 17th Int Symp on Plant Lipids - Duration: 16 Jul 2006 → 21 Jul 2006 |
Conference
| Conference | Proceedings of the 17th Int Symp on Plant Lipids |
|---|---|
| Period | 16/07/06 → 21/07/06 |