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Automated High-Throughput Fatty Acid Analysis of Umbilical Cord Serum and Application to an Epidemiological Study

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Lipids

Abstract

Large population studies show that polyunsaturated fatty acids are important for human health, but determining relationships between the health benefits and the fatty acid content has been hampered by the unavailability of labor-effective high-throughput technologies. An automated high throughput fatty acid analysis was developed from a previous procedure based on direct transesterification including the automation of chemical procedures, data acquisition and automatic data processing. The method was validated and applied to umbilical cord serum samples in an epidemiological study. The method was linear in the range of 1–600 μg/mL serum with r 2 ≥0.99. The within-run CV was <5.4% for 23 fatty acids and a range of recoveries over three concentrations were 76–119% in a low-lipid matrix with the exception of 14:0. The fatty acid concentration as measured by the robotic method for human plasma was in good agreement with the Lepage & Roy method. The fatty acid profile in umbilical cord serum from American subjects (n = 287) showed an average of 38.0, 24.9, 32.0 and 4.6% of total fatty acids for saturates, monounsaturates, n-6 and n-3 polyunsaturates, respectively. This is the first report of a complete, validated, cost-effective, automated, high throughput fatty acid measurement method along with application to a population-based study. Automated fatty acid analysis coupled with automated data processing greatly facilitates the high throughput, 72 samples transesterified in 6 h, required for large population-based studies.

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Abbreviations

AA:

Arachidonic acid

DHA:

Docosahexaenoic acid

EFA:

Essential fatty acid

FAME:

Fatty acid methyl ester

GC or GC/FID:

Gas chromatography/flame ionization detector

GC/MS:

Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

HUFA:

Highly unsaturated fatty acid

ISTD:

Internal standard

LiHa:

Liquid handling arm

pLLD:

Pressure-based liquid level detection

PMP:

Pressure monitored pipetting

PUFA:

Polyunsaturated fatty acid

Robot:

Automated liquid handling system

VBA:

Visual Basic Application

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported, in part, by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Thanks to Dr. Shui-Lin Niu for helping with the preparation of the low lipid serum, and Mr. Brian Brown for his assistance with manuscript editing.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Norman Salem Jr.

    Present address: DSM Nutritional Products, LLC, Columbia, MD, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Nutritional Neuroscience, Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, NIH, 5625 Fishers Lane, Room 3N-07, MSC 9410, Bethesda, MD, 20892-9410, USA

    Yu Hong Lin, Norman Salem Jr., Weiyin Zhou, James D. Loewke, James A. Brown, William E. M. Lands & Joseph R. Hibbeln

  2. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Case Western University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Ellen M. Wells

  3. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Ellen M. Wells

  4. George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Washington, DC, USA

    Lynn R. Goldman

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  1. Yu Hong Lin
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Correspondence to Yu Hong Lin.

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Lin, Y.H., Salem, N., Wells, E.M. et al. Automated High-Throughput Fatty Acid Analysis of Umbilical Cord Serum and Application to an Epidemiological Study. Lipids 47, 527–539 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-012-3661-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-012-3661-6

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