Fatty acid, structural analysis

The chemical structure of lipid A of lipopolysaccharide isolated from Comamonas testosteroni was recently determined by lida et al. (1996) by means of methylation analysis, mass spectrometry and NMR. The lipid A backbone was found to consist of 6-0-(2-deoxy-2-amino-P-D-glucopyrano-syl)-2-deoxy-2-amino-alpha-D-glucose which was phosphorylated in positions 1 and 4. Hydroxyl groups at positions 4 and 6 were unsubstituted, and position 6 of the reducing terminal residue was identified as the attachment site of the polysaccharide group. Fatty acid distribution analysis and ES/MS of lipid A showed that positions 2,2, 3 and 3 of the sugar backbone were N-acylated or O-acylated by R-3-hydroxydecanoic acid and that the hydroxyl groups of the amide-linked residues attached to positions 2 and 2 were further O-acylated by tetradecanoic and dodecanoic acids, respectively. 

Abel et al. (1963) have suggested that the fatty acid composition of a particular microorganism might be a useful tool to aid in the classification of the organism. While there is no doubt that there may be some merit to this idea, their study aptly points out the complications to such an approach. First, it is quite clear that a number of their tentative assignments of fatty acid structures are incorrect. For example, the presence of major amounts of cyclopropane fatty acids in E. coli reported by a number of workers (Dauchy and Asselineau, 1960 Kaneshiro and Marr, 1961) is completely overlooked. Branched-chain fatty acids in various species of Bacillus and Micrococcus are also ignored. These errors illustrate the fact that fatty acid identification by gas-liquid chromatography, without ancillary analysis by independent... 

Polycrystalline and well-oriented specimens of pure amylose have been trapped both in the A- and B-forms of starch, and their diffraction patterns84-85 are suitable for detailed structure analysis. Further, amylose can be regenerated in the presence of solvents or complexed with such molecules as alcohols, fatty acids, and iodine the molecular structures and crystalline arrangements in these materials are classified under V-amylose. When amylose complexes with alkali or such salts as KBr, the resulting structures86 are surprisingly far from those of V-amyloses. 

Quantitative estimates of microbial and community structure by means of analysis of the phospholipid fraction have been performed on. sediments, water (135), and dust (136) as well as. soil (137-141). The method is applicable to the study of mixed populations of varying degrees of complexity and is relatively straightforward to perform. A selection of studies involving the analysis of fatty acid profiles of environmental samples are outlined in Table 6. 

L. M. Mallory and G. S. Sayler, Application of FAME (fatty acid methyl ester) analysis in the numerical taxonomic determination of bacterial guild structure, Mi-croh. Ecol. t0 l%2 (1984). 

To summarise, a fractionation step allows the isolation of the compounds of interest from the other molecular constituents, particularly from the fatty acids that are well-ionised. To compensate for the low ionisation yield of some compounds, such as TAGs, the solutions may be doped with a cation. Samples are then directly infused into the ion electrospray source of the mass spectrometer. A first spectrum provides an overview of the main molecular compounds present in the solution based on the peaks related to molecular cations. The MS/MS experiment is then performed to elucidate the structure of each high molecular compound. Table 4.2 shows the different methods of sample preparation and analysis of nonvolatile compounds as esters and TAGs from reference beeswax, animal fats and archaeological samples. 

First attempts to combine pyrolysis with in situ HMDS silylation of organic art materials were reported by Chiavari et al., who were successful in obtaining trimethylsilyl derivatives of fatty acids [52], amino acids [53] and carbohydrates [54]. The same authors also applied pyrolysis-silylation to the analysis of different kinds of natural resins and for each of them diagnostic silylated compounds were identified, even if many were difficult to assign precise structures [55],... 

The aims of this contribution are to (i) consider the theoretical principles underlying the use of compound-specific stable isotope analysis in archaeology (ii) consider the practical aspects of undertaking compound-specific stable isotope analyses and (iii) demonstrate the value of linking the structures of amino acids, fatty acids and/or sterols, to their compound-specific stable isotope values to achieve new insights into variations in metabolism and environment in order to enhance archaeological interpretations. 

In total, 185 substances were found in the wing-sac liquid of male S. bilineata from a Costa Rican population. For a more detailed analysis the relative peak area of thirteen focus compounds was compared (Table 14.1). Of these nine were male-specific substances (indole, indol-3-carboxaldehyde, indole-3-carboxylic acid, 2-aminoacetophenon, anthranilic acid, SHJOH-dipyrrolofl -aT -dJpyrazine-5,10-dione (pyrocoll), indolo[2,l-b]quinazoline-6,12-dione (tryptanthrin), 2,6,10-trimethyl-3-oxo-6,10-dodecadienolide, and a compound C15H24O2 of unknown structure), three were fatty acids (tetradecanoic acid, hexadecanoic acid, and octadecanoic acid), and one a steroid (cholesterol). On average, the cumulative peak area of these substances made up 62.5 20.7% of the whole chromatogram area. 

A second method uses permethylation of the dephosphated (48% aqueous HF, 48 h, 4°C) and 2H-reduced fipid A. This approach allowed the assignment of amide-bound fatty acids linked to GlcN(I) and GlcN(II), as well as the identification of the backbone structure as a HexpN disaccharide (85). Mass-spectrometric analysis of the products was performed by using either a short g.l.c. column (0.3 X 5 cm) or by direct insertion-probe analysis (87). In the case of C. violaceum (85), the mass spectra obtained from the permethyl-ated HexpN disaccharide bearing attached TV-methylacyl residues revealed unequivocally that both amino groups carried 12 0(3-OH). 

The marriage of HPLC to mass spectrometry (MS), now developed into a mature instrumentation, continues to greatly impact many of the separation sciences, especially in pharmaceutical analysis where it has been used in new drug discovery [23,24] and in drug metabolite identification [25-27]. HPLC-MS has also made an impact on lipid research, providing a convenient approach to the analysis of phospholipids and fatty acids [28,29]. It has also greatly benefited the field of proteomics [30-34], especially analysis of protein structure and function. 

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