Ricerc@Sapienza

In recent years, great attention has been focused on rapid, selective, and environmentally friendly extraction methods to recover pigments and antioxidants from microalgae. Among these, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) represents one of the most important alternatives to traditional extraction methods carried out with the use of organic solvents. In this study, the influence of parameters such as pressure, temperature, and the addition of a polar co-solvent in the SFE yields of carotenoids and fat-soluble vitamins from T. obliquus biomass were evaluated.

Adulteration of Mozzarella di Bufala Campana with cow milk is a common fraud because of the high price and limited seasonal availability of water buffalo milk. To identify such adulteration, this work proposes a novel approach based on the use of species-specific, low-molecular-weight biomarkers (LMWBs). Liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry screening analyses identified β-carotene, lutein, and β-cryptoxanthin as LMWBs of cow milk, while ergocalciferol was found only in water buffalo milk.

Liquid chromatography (LC) is the technique of choice to perform the individual and simultaneous analysis of water- and fat-soluble vitamins and carotenoids, especially in complex matrices such as foods. This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of the main LC methods, describes the precautions necessary for handling these problematic substances in each analytical phase, and examines the difficulties connected with the sample preparation, chromatographic separation, and detection.

This paper describes an analytical approach, based on LC-diode array detector-MS/MS (LC-DAD-MS/MS), for characterizing the fat-soluble micronutrient fraction in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Two different procedures were applied to isolate the analytes from liver and muscle tissue: overnight cold saponification to hydrolyze bound forms and to simplify the analysis; matrix solid-phase dispersion to avoid artifacts and to maintain unaltered the naturally occurring forms.

This review presents advancements in sample preparation and liquid chromatographic methods made during the last 10 years for the fat-soluble vitamin (FSV) analysis in foods. Since activity. and bioavailability of organic micronutrients (MOs) depend on the form in which they are present in a food, special emphasis has been given to the most recent techniques, instruments and approaches which have allowed the extraction and separation of various vitamin homologues as well as the comprehensive MO profiling in foods.