Comprehensive quantitative profiling of vegetable oil oxidation products by NMR-based oxylipidomics

Lipid oxidation is one the major causes of food deterioration. Current advancement in mechanistic understanding is limited by the lack of high-throughput methods that can simultaneously quantify a wide range of oxidation product classes, such as lipid hydroperoxides, epoxides, ketones, hydroxides, and aldehydes. Here, we introduce an NMR-based 'oxylipidomics' platform by providing the annotation of 42 substructures formed during lipid oxidation in vegetable oils. The annotated substructures accounted for respectively 93, 90 and 70% of the oxidation products of triolein, trilinolein, and trilinolenin. The spectral assignments allowed for quantification of lipid oxidation products in vegetable oil at class (e.g., epoxides) and substructure level (e.g., trans-epoxides) at the commonly available field strength of 14.1 T (600 MHz). We anticipate that our workflow will enable rapid assessment of health risks, unravelling of precursor-sensory relationships, rational design of antioxidant strategies, and in-depth mechanistic studies into food lipid oxidation.