Fatty acid composition of some pine seed oils

Abstract

The fatty acid composition of seeds from seven species of the genus Pinus (P. pinaster, P. griffithii, P. pinea, P. koraiensis, P. sylvestris, P. mughus, and P. nigra) was established. Pine seeds are rich in oil (31-68% by weight) and contain several unusual polymethylene-interrupted unsaturated fatty acids with a cis-5 ethylenic bond. These are the cis-5, cis-9 18:2, cis-5, cis-9, cis-12 18:3, cis-5, cis-11 20:2, and cis-5, cis-11, cis-14 20:3 acids, with a trace of cis-5, cis-9, cis-12, cis-15 18:4 acid. Their percentage relative to total fatty acids varies from a low of 3.1% (P. pinea) to a high of 30.3% (P. sylvestris), depending on the species. The major cis-5 double bond-containing acid is generally the cis-5, cis-9, cis-12 18:3 acid (pinolenic acid). In all species, linoleic acid represents approximately one-half the total fatty acids, whereas the content of oleic acid varies in the range 14-36% inversely to the sum of fatty acids containing a cis-5 ethylenic bond. The easily available seeds from P. koraiensis appear to be a good source of pinolenic acid: their oil content is ca. 65%, and pinolenic represents about 15% of total fatty acids. These values appear to be rather constant. Pinus pinaster, which is grown on several thousand acres in the southwest of France, is an interesting source of cis-5, cis-11, cis-14 20:3 acid (7% in the oil, which is ca. 35% of the dehulled seed weight), an acid sharing in common three double bonds with arachidonic acid. Apparently, P. sylvestris seed oil contains the highest level of cis-5 double bond-containing acids among pine seed oils that have ever been analyzed. © 1995 AOCS Press.