This review (open access) evaluates isomer-resolved lipid fingerprints as a complementary approach to established screening methods to detect edible oil adulteration. The review focusses on two underexploited structural dimensions: (i) double-bond positional and geometric isomerism and (ii) triacylglycerol (TAG) sn-regioisomerism, which encode biosynthetic specificity and processing “memory” that is less accessible to conventional compositional markers.
The authors compare analytical strategies (e.g., epoxidation-MS/MS and Paternò–Büchi reactions, ozone-based dissociation/ozonolysis, and ion mobility–mass spectrometry) highlighting their respective strengths, limitations, need for derivatisation, and fit-for-purpose roles in food-industry contexts.
The authors describe some specific examples relating to high-value oil adulteration, differentiation of native versus refined/reprocessed products, monitoring of thermal/oxidative history, and emerging nutrition-relevant structure–function questions. They recommend improvements and standardisation relating to reporting confidence and nomenclature, quantitation and reference materials, tiered workflows (screening-to-confirmatory), and defensible decision thresholds. They identify key gaps in inter-laboratory comparability, controlled processing studies, and food-specific data infrastructure.
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