Profiling of regioisomeric triacylglycerols in edible oils by supercritical fluid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

•The application of SFC/MS/MS for the detailed characterization of diverse TAGs in edible oils.•Highly selective determination of isomeric TAG pairs in palm and canola oils.•First report about the profiling of six regioisomeric TAG pairs in palm and canola oils.

In this study, supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry was applied to the profiling of several regioisomeric triacylglycerols (TAGs). SFC conditions (column, flow rate, modifier) were optimized for the effective separation of TAGs. In the column test, a triacontyl (C30) silica gel reversed-phase column was selected to separate TAG regioisomers. Multiple reaction monitoring was used to selectively quantify each TAG. Then, the method was used to perform detailed characterization of a diverse array of TAGs in palm and canola oils. Seventy TAGs (C46:0–C60:2) of these oils were successfully analyzed as a result, and twenty isomeric TAG pairs were separated well. In particular, this method provided the fast and high resolution separation of six regioisomeric TAG pairs (PPLn/PLnP, PPL/PLP, PPO/POP, SPLn/SLnP, SPO/SOP, SSO/SOS–stearic acid (S, 18:0), oleic acid (O, 18:1), linoleic acid (L, 18:2), linolenic acid (Ln, 18:3), palmitic acid (P, 16:0)) in a short time (50 min) as compared to high performance liquid chromatography. We were able to demonstrate the utility of this method for the analysis of regioisomeric TAGs in edible oils.