Bioactive lipids and fatty acids profile of Cistanche phelypaea

Abstract

Oil extracted from the wild plant of Cistanche phelypaea was analyzed for its fatty acid, sterol, hydrocarbon and tocopherol contents. Total lipids (TL) content was 10 g/kg (on dry weight basis). The majority of fatty acids were of the unsaturated type (50.4 % of total fatty acids), while the saturated (mainly palmitic acid) were about 43.2 % of the total fatty acids. Oleic acid was the dominating fatty acid followed by palmitic and linoleic acids. High amounts of sterols were found in the oil with the main component β-sitosterol. Other phytosterols (e.g. stigmasterol, ∆⁷-avenasterol and ∆⁵-avenasterol) were present at approximately equal amounts (6–9 % of total sterols). The main identified hydrocarbon compounds were C₂₁, C₂₆ and C₃₂ constituting about 61.2 % of total hydrocarbons. Small amounts of C₁₂, C₁₈ and C₂₂, however, were also detected. Tocopherol levels were high in the oil (3.36 g/kg oil), wherein β-tocopherol was the main component followed by α-isomer. Both tocopherol components comprised more than 87 % of total vitamin E content in the oil. Furthermore, γ- and δ-tocopherols were detected in small amounts in the oil accounting for 14–16 % of the total vitamin E content. Information provided by the present work will be of importance for food applications and chemotaxonomy of Cistanche phelypaea.