Quantitative esterification of lipids on thin-layer adsorbents

Abstract

Lipid classes separated by thin-layer chromatography can be determined by gas chromatography of the methyl esters of the component fatty acids with added internal standard. A simplified procedure is described for the complete analysis of all the lipid classes in a given sample in which transesterification is performed on the thin-layer adsorbent itself. The methyl esters are recovered from the reaction mixture with a less polar solvent than would have been required to elute the original component. As a consequence of the elimination of a step that requires preliminary elution of components from the thin-layer plates, there is less contamination of minor components by trace amounts of impurities in large volumes of solvent, and the results obtained are more reproducible.