In biochemistry, a fatty acid is defined as a long aliphatic chain with a carboxylic acid functional group, either saturated or unsaturated. Fatty acids can be categorized into several groups according to the length of the chains: short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) with aliphatic tails of 2-6 carbons; medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA) with aliphatic tails of 6–12 carbons; long-chain fatty acids (LCFA) 13 to 21 carbons in aliphatic tails and Very long chain fatty acids (VLCFA) with aliphatic tails longer than 22 carbons. Fatty acids can also be divided into 2 groups according to whether they have double bonds between carbon atoms, unsaturated fatty acids and saturated fatty acids. There are one or more double bonds between carbon atoms in unsaturated fatty acids, while saturated fatty acids are saturated with hydrogen and have only single bonds and without double bonds.
Essential fatty acids are defined as fatty acids required for biological processes that human couldn’t synthesize sufficient quantity from other substrates and must obtain from diet. Only two fatty acids, alpha-linolenic acid and linoleic acid are considered as essential for human beings, though some other fatty acids like docosahexaenoic acid and gamma-linolenic acid are classified as "conditionally essential because these fatty acids are essential under certain developmental or disease conditions. Those essential fatty acids are widely existed in animals and plant oils.
Most of the fatty acids come from triglycerides or phospholipids. Fatty acids are important sources of fuel in the body because they produce large quantities of ATP when metabolized in the body. Though most cell types can use either glucose or fatty acids for energy generation, while long chain fatty acids can’t transport the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and can’t be used as energy source for central nervous system. However, short-chain fatty acids and medium-chain fatty acids can transport across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and enter the brain and act as an alternative energy source to ketone bodies.
Several analytical platforms are available to determine the concentration of FFAs in biological samples. However, it is hard for most of the platforms to recover all fatty acids. Because of their poor absorbance in visible-UV region and the absence of appropriate chromophores or fluorescent groups, it is difficult to determine the concentration of fatty acids by HPLC. Another procedures that are widely used are gas chromatography (GC) and GC-MS. GC-MS has been used for the quantitative analysis of carboxylic fatty acids for a long time. The structural molecular ions generated from the MS detection source offer more sensitive and reliable analysis of fatty acids present in lipid samples. Creative Proteomics has established sensitive, reliable, and accurate GC-MS method for quantification of medium-chain and long-chain fatty acids.
Medium-chain and Long-chain Fatty Acids Quantified in This Service
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With integrated set of separation, characterization, identification and quantification systems featured with excellent robustness & reproducibility, high and ultra-sensitivity, Creative Proteomics provides reliable, rapid and cost-effective medium-chain and long-chain fatty acids targeted lipidomics services.