Estimating Fatty Acid Composition of Infant Buccal Mucosal Cells by Capillary Gas Chromatography

Long chain polyunsaturated fatty adds, i. e., docosahexaenoic acid (DHA or C22 : 6n -3), arachidonic acid (AA or C20 : 4n - 6) have been identified as essential fatty acids and play an important role in growth and development of infants. Mensurement of fatty acid composition is usually by collection of blood, but to obtain blood in infants is difficult. Nowadays, the fatty acid composition can be estimated by collecting buccal mucosal cells, which can avoid repeated blood sampling. The purpose of this paper is to compare the fatty acid composition of cheek calls with that of plasma and red blood cells (RBCs). In this study, twenty-seven infants were enrolled, and buccal mucosal cells and blood samples were obtained from these infants of the same time. Fatty acid composition of buccal mucesal cells, plasma and RBCs were measured by capillary gas chromatography. The results show that the contents of AA and DHA in the buccal mucosal cells are correlated well with that in the plasma [r=0.36 (P=0.042) and r=0.38 (P=0.033), respectively]. The ratio of AA to DHA is 1.32% in buccal mucosal cells, 1.60% in plasma and 1.55% in RBCs and there are no significant differences among groups (P = 0.134). It shows that the fatty acid composition in buccal mucosal cells can reflect the fat nutrition status in infants and can be detected by capillary gas chromatography. Estimating fatty acid composition of buccal mucosal cells in infants by capillary gas chromatography is feasible, and because of its noninvasiveness, it can be suitable for nutrition research in infants.