Improved identification of conjugated linoleic acid isomers using silver-ion HPLC separations

Silver-ion high-performance liquid chromatography (Ag+-HPLC) has been shown to be effective in the resolution of most of the isomers of conjugated octadecadienoic acids (18:2), also known as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). The CLA isomers identified in natural fats from ruminants are a mixture of numerous positional and geometric isomers from 7,9- to 12,14-18:2. Ag+-HPLC separates both geometric (trans,trans < cis/trans < cis,cis) and positional CLA isomers using the mobile phase hexane/acetonitrile (99.9:0.1). The elution volumes for the CLA isomers were not only affected by the concentration of acetonitrile (in the prepared mobile phase) but also with successive runs during the day using a prepared mobile phase batch, due to the partial solubility of acetonitrile in hexane. However, this drift does not affect the relative resolution of the CLA isomers. The addition of diethyl ether to the mobile phase partly stabilizes the solvent mixture. In order to facilitate the interpretation of Ag-+HPLC chromatograms, the relative retention volumes (RRV) were calculated for each CLA isomer. Toluene was added to all the test portions and served as an estimator of dead volume, whereas the elution of the ubiquitous 9c,11t-CLA isomer was chosen as unity (1.00). Expressing the elution of all the CLA isomers as their RRV greatly helped to standardize each CLA isomer, resulting in relatively small coefficients of variation (% CV) for the trans,trans (<1.5%) and cis/trans (<0.5%) CLA isomers. The identification of the CLA isomers was further facilitated by synthesis of authentic CLA isomers. All the geometric CLA fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) from positions 6,8- to 13,15-CLA were commercially available or synthesized by a combination of partial hydrazine reduction of known polyunsaturated fatty acids followed by alkali isomerization, isolation of products, and further iodine-catalyzed geometric isomerization. Based on expressing the elution volume as RRV and the availability of the synthetic CLA isomers, a unique reversal of the elution order of the c/t CLA isomers was found. It is also proposed that the retention times of CLA isomers by gas chromatography (GC) should be expressed as their relative retention times (RRT) relative to methyl gamma-linoleneate. The availability of CLA reference materials and the application of RRV and RRT to Ag+-HPLC and GC separations, respectively, will greatly improve in the identifications of CLA isomers.