Quantification of triacylglycerol regioisomers by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography and ammonia negative ion atmospheric pressure chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometry

The regioisomer composition of triacylglycerols (TAGs) in various vegetable oils was determined with a new liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS method). A direct inlet ammonia negative ion chemical ionization (NICI) MS/MS method was improved by adapting it to LC negative ion (NO atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) MS/MS system using ammonia as nebulizer gas. The method is based on the preferential formation of [M-H-RCOOH-100](-) ions during collision-induced dissociation by loss of sn-1/3 fatty acids from [M-H](-) ions. Calibration curves were created from nine reference TAGs: Ala/L/L, Gla/L/L, L/L/O, L/O/O, P/O/O, P/P/O, Po/Po/V, Po/Po/O, and C/O/O. The calibration curves were used to quantify the regioisomer compositions of selected TAGs in rapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil, palm oil, black currant seed oil, and sea buckthorn pulp oil. The method discriminates the different regioisomers and the results obtained by this method were in good agreement with previous results. This proves that this new method can be used for the determination of regiospecific distribution of fatty acids in TAGs. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.