| Abstract: | Interest in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) research has increased significantly in recent years because various CLA isomers have been reported to exhibit different beneficial physiological effects in laboratory animals. These findings are detailed in the first book on this subject entitled Advances in CLA Research, Volume 1, edited by M. P. Yurawecz, M. M. Mossoba, J. K. G. Kramer, M. W. Pariza, and G. J. Nelson, and published by the American Oil Chemists Society, Champaign, Illinois, USA, in 1999. Various mixtures of CLA isomers are sold as dietary supplements today, but the biological activities observed in animal models have yet to be demonstrated in humans. Hurdles to achieving this goal include the commercial unavailability of many individual CLA isomers, and the challenge of isolating, separating and confirming the identity of low levels of CLA isomers and their metabolites in complex chemical and/or biological matrices. Therefore, there has been a critical need for analytical methodologies that can meet these difficult objectives. This dossier is about a collection of useful analytical techniques and procedures some of which are well known, while others have only recently been developed and successfully applied to CLA research. These include GC, Ag+‐HPLC, RP‐HPLC, GC‐MS, GC‐IR, and NMR. |
