New insights in the composition of wax and sterol esters in common and mutant sunflower oils revealed by ESI-MS/MS

Wax esters (WEs) and steryl esters (SEs) are minor components of sunflower oils formed by the esterification of long chain fatty alcohols and sterols to fatty acids. These compounds have similar carbon numbers and polarities making them difficult to separate using conventional chromatographic methods. In this study, electrospray ionisation-tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) allowed the rapid and accurate profiling of WEs and SEs acyl moieties in total ester fractions of common and mutant sunflower oils with different fatty acid profiles. The acyl composition of both WEs and SEs partially reflected that of the oil and the high oleic background displayed the lowest level of crystallisable waxes. ESI-MS/MS complemented by GC-MS analyses revealed that SEs contain 17-30% of previously unreported methylsterol moieties. We demonstrated that these compounds are overlooked by official sterol analytical methods which may have consequences for quality control and authentication of vegetable oils prior to commercialisation.