Investigations of Early Nutrition Effects on Long-Term Health

Banny Silva Barbosa, Lucas Gelain Martins, Tássia B. B. C. Costa, Guilherme Cruz, Ljubica Tasic

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy in combination with chemometrics can be applied in the analysis of complex biological samples in many ways. For example, we can analyze lipids, elucidate their structures, determine their nutritional values, and determine their distribution in blood serum. As lipids are not soluble in water, they are transported in blood as lipid-rich self-assembled particles, divided into different density assemblies from high- to very-low-density lipoproteins (HDL to VLDL), or by combining with serum proteins, such as albumins (human serum albumins (HSA)). Therefore, serum lipids can be analyzed as they are using only a 1:1 (v/v) dilution with a buffer or deuterated water prior to analysis by applying 1H NMR or 1H NMR edited-by-diffusion techniques. Alternatively, lipids can be extracted from the serum using liquid partition equilibrium and then analyzed using liquid-state NMR techniques. Our chapter describes protocols that are used for extraction of blood serum lipids and their quantitative 1H NMR (1H qNMR) analysis in lipid extracts as well as 1H NMR edited by diffusion for direct blood serum lipid analysis.