Resumen de Fatty acid composition in Linum species: Species delimitation and diversity
Hadi Habibollahi, Zahra Noormohammadi, Masoud Sheidai, Farah Farahani
Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) is one of the most important cultivated oil-producing plants that is highly evaluated for its fatty acid components. Studying and using wild relatives of cultivated crop plants as a spore of gene pool for breeding and hybridization is considered very important now. Therefore, the aim of present investigation was to provide data on saturated and unsaturated fatty acids of three Linum species, Linum usitatissimum, L. austriacum and L. album. We also studied the magnitude of oil composition variability within populations of these species and attempted to find out if oil composition data can be used in the Linum species delimitation. The saturated (C16:0, C18:0 and C20:0) and unsaturated (C18:1, C18:2, C18:3 and C20:1) fatty acids identified by GC represented inter- and intraspecies variations in the linseed and wild linum species. The linolenic (C18:3), linoleic (C18:2) and oleic acid as unsaturated fatty acids had an average of 52.7%, 12.4% and 20.6% respectively in cultivated flax (L. usitatissimum), an average of 51.4%, 18.8 and 20.3% in L. austriacum, and 4.3%, 60.4%, 22.5% in L. album respectively. Correlations between saturated and unsaturated fatty acids showed that with increase of linolenic acid in linseed oil, the oleic acid decreased. We found that unsaturated fatty acids (linoleic and linolenic) were higher in wild species as compared to those of the cultivated flaxseed, while precursor saturated fatty acids were lower in the studied wild species. Cluster analysis and a PCoA plot revealed that the Linum species differed in their oil profiles and the populations of each species were placed in a separate group. These data can be used in the Linum species delimitation.
