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Analysis of Fatty Acid and Lignan Composition of Indian Germplasm of Sesame to Evaluate Their Nutritional Merits

  • Original Paper
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Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society

Abstract

An attempt was made to individually analyze a germplasm collection of 54 indigenous Indian sesame cultivars for fatty acid and lignan composition of their seed oil by gas chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography, respectively. The entries varied in their fatty acid and lignan composition. The mean percentage contents of palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic and α-linolenic acids ranged between 10–22, 5–10, 38–50, 18–43 and less than 1 whereas sesamol, sesamin and sesamolin scored between 3–37, 27–67, 20–59 of the total percentage of lignan, respectively. The highest percentage of α-linolenic acid (ALA) was obtained in Var-9 (1.3 % of the total fatty acids). Among the lignans, high sesamin content is considered to be significant, particularly in terms of long shelf life and nutraceutical value of sesame seed oil. The study has broadened our understanding related to differential biochemical composition of the rich sesame germplasms, thereby providing us with a useful groundwork for identifying potential targets and suitable cultivars for genetic engineering approaches to be undertaken in order to improve the nutritional quality of sesame oil, which in turn would be beneficial towards human health.

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Acknowledgments

The authors extend their thanks to Manoj Aditya and Varun Manna for their technical assistance during the course of this study and Meghnath Prasad for secretarial assistance in preparing this report. Financial assistance from National Agricultural Innovation Project, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (NAIP/ICAR) in terms of grant support (Project component code 4C1090) to laboratory and fellowship to RKB is thankfully acknowledged. Finally, the authors extend their thanks to the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions which have helped to improve the clarity of the manuscript immensely.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Laboratory for Plant Genetic Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    Rupam Kumar Bhunia, Anirban Chakraborty, Ranjeet Kaur, T. Gayatri, Asitava Basu, Mrinal K. Maiti & Soumitra Kumar Sen

  2. Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    Mrinal K. Maiti

  3. National Research Centre on DNA Fingerprinting, NBPGR, Pusa Campus, New Delhi, 110012, India

    K. V. Bhat

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  1. Rupam Kumar Bhunia
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Bhunia, R.K., Chakraborty, A., Kaur, R. et al. Analysis of Fatty Acid and Lignan Composition of Indian Germplasm of Sesame to Evaluate Their Nutritional Merits. J Am Oil Chem Soc 92, 65–76 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-014-2566-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-014-2566-3

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