Determination of molecular species of enantiomeric diacylglycerols by chiral phase high performance liquid chromatography and polar capillary gas-liquid chromatography

A simple method is described for the determination of molecular species of enantiomeric sn-1,2- and sn-2,3-diacylglycerols derived from natural triacylglycerols by Grignard degradation. The method is based on a preparative separation of the enantiomeric diacylglycerols as 3,5-dinitrophenylurethane (DNPU) derivatives by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) on a chiral column (25 cm x 4.6 mm ID) containing R-(+)-1-(1-naphthyl)ethylamine as a stationary phase. This is followed by polar capillary gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) of the trimethylsilyl (TMS) ether derivatives of the enantiomeric diacylglycerols derived from the DNPU derivatives using trichlorosilane, which does not cause acyl migration and racemization during the reaction. The cleavage is better than 94% complete. The method was standardized with synthetic sn-1,2- and sn-2,3-dipalmitoyl- and rac-1,2-dioleoylglycerols and was applied to the identification and quantitation of individual molecular species of enantiomeric diacylglycerols generated by Grignard degradation of the triacylglycerols from corn oil, cocoa butter, and lard.