Analysis of bone marrow fatty acid composition using high-resolution proton NMR spectroscopy

High-resolution 1H NMR spectroscopy as a complementary method in the analysis of human bone marrow fatty acid (FA) composition was examined. Marrow FA composition in 10 bone samples measured by NMR and gas chromatography (GC) were compared. NMR T1 relaxation time of FA was determined and reproducibility tests were performed to assess the variability. Good correlations were obtained between the NMR and GC results for omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) (Spearman r, 0.878), omega-3 PUFA (0.895), monounsaturated FA (0.964) and saturated FA (0.939). The NMR method tended to overestimate saturated FA and underestimate omega-3/omega-6 ratio compared to GC results. T1 relaxation time of marrow FA was 0.56–3.65 s. Coefficient of variation of the NMR method was 0.6–8.2% in intra-experimental and 0.2–8.4% in inter-experimental measurements. This study demonstrates a complementary role for 1H NMR spectroscopy as an additional analytical tool in human lipid research.