Two new vegetable fatty acids found

WASHINGTON-American and Chinese scientists have discovered two new fatty acids in vegetable oils, potentially to be developed as high-quality lubricants.

The study published last month in the journal Nature Plants revealed that two acids, Nebraskanic acid and Wuhanic acid, made up nearly half of the seed oil found in Chinese violet cress, and named them after their discoverers, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Huazhong Agricultural University in China.

"People thought maybe they'd found everything there was to find," said Nebraska's Ed Cahoon, a George Holmes University Professor of biochemistry who co-authored the paper. "It's been at least several decades since somebody has discovered a new component of vegetable oil like this."

Fatty acids represent the primary components of vegetable oils, which are best known for their role in the kitchen, but have also found use in biodiesel fuels, lubricants and other industrial applications.

Most off-the-shelf vegetable oils, such as canola or soybean oil, contain the same five fatty acids. Those conventional fatty acids all contain either 16 or 18 carbon atoms and feature similar molecular structures, according to the researchers.

By contrast, Nebraskanic and Wuhanic rank among a class of "unusual" fatty acids that contain fewer or more carbon atoms and uncommon molecular branches that stem from those carbons. They both have 24 atoms.

All known fatty acids generally add two carbon atoms at the end of a four-step biochemical cycle, then continue doing so until assembly is complete.