Food Lipidomics for 155 Agricultural Plant Products

Lipids exhibit functional bioactivities based on their polar and
acyl chain properties; humans obtain lipids from dietary plant product
intake. Therefore, the identification of different molecular species
facilitates the evaluation of biological functions and nutrition levels
and new phenotype-modulating lipid structures. As a rapid screening
strategy, we performed untargeted lipidomics for 155 agricultural
products in 58 species from 23 plant families, wherein product-specific
lipid diversities were shown using computational mass spectrometry.
We characterized 716 lipid species, for which the profiles revealed
the National Center for Biotechnology Information-established organismal
classification and unique plant tissue metabotypes. Moreover, we annotated
unreported subclasses in plant lipidology; e.g., triacylglycerol estolide
(TG-EST) was detected in rice seeds (Oryza sativa) and several plant species. TG-EST is known as the precursor molecule
producing the fatty acid ester of hydroxy fatty acid, which lowers
ambient glycemia and improves glucose tolerance. Hence, our method
can identify agricultural plant products containing valuable lipid
ingredients.