Quantification Method for Triglyceride Molecular Species in Fish Oil with High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Ultraviolet Detector

A new quantification method for triglyceride (TG) molecular species contained in fish oil was developed using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-ultraviolet detector (UV) system. In this experiment, triacontyl silane column and a mixture of alcohol and acetonitrile were used for column and mobile phase, respectively. Fifteen kinds of TG molecular species exist in fish oil were collected and the calibration curves monitored at 210nm were acquired for each TG molecular species. Also, evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD), widely used for the detection of fish oil TG molecular species, was tandem jointed after UV to compare the calibration curves for each TG molecular species. As the results, the calibration curves by UV with isocratic elution system were linear lines, on the contrary, those by ELSD were not linear. The slope of each calibration curve by UV was not the same and there was a tendency that TG molecular species having big partition number indicates a small slope calibration curve. The HPLC-UV with gradient system was also examined, but a few of standard TGs did not provide linear calibration curve. Consequently, we concluded that isocratic HPLC-UV system would be an available method for the quantification of TG molecular species in fish oil.