Gas Chromatography for Unsaturated Fatty Acid Profiles of Baobab Plant (Adansonia digitata)

Gas chromatography (GC) has been a powerful tool for the quantitative and structural analysis of various plant species’ lipids. Unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) are vital for human nutrition and health and should be a major part of any diet. Herein, a protocol to determine UFAs profiles of the baobab plant (Adansonia digitata) by gas chromatography (GC) detection has been described. The two most important parts were considered from the baobab plant: the pulp and the seeds. First, the baobab whole ripe fruit is dried under a shed and broken to separate the pulp from the seeds and fiber. Both the pulp and the seeds are then ground into fine powder. The powdered samples are then dissolved in ultrapure water and prepared for the GC analysis following standard operation procedures. The procedure described in this chapter is designed for 100 mg of the pulp and seed per sample to establish the UFAs profiles of the baobab plant for the determination of its relative concentration and purity.