Highperformance liquid chromatography in the separation of triglycerides from complex animal fats.

Triglycerides are at the same time, one of the most abundant and complex li pid fraction in the nature. For this reason, it is esential to determine th eir molecular species composition, as well as to know the stereospecific po sition in which the far, acids are located, in order to characterize animal fats and vegetable oils. The most commonly employed technique for this obj ective is high-performance liquid chromatography, in general using reversed phase columns. In the present article we describe the operative conditions employed nowadays in order to achieve the optimum resolution far the trigl yceride chromatographic peaks, and also the present situation of the knowle dge in the separation of the molecular species of complex mixtures of trigl ycerides, such as milk fat, fish oil and hepatic fat, which are of importan ce in the industrial sector and human nutrition.