Analysis of Phenacylester Derivatives of Fatty Acids from Human Skin Surface Sebum by Reversed-Phase HPLC: Chromatographic Mobility as a Function of Physico-Chemical Properties

A set of 13 fatty acids was transformed into their phenacyl esters by reaction with phenacyl bromide in acetonitrile using 18-crown-6 as phase-transfer catalyst. Conditions for the RP-18 HPL chromatographic separation of most of the esters has been worked out. Using this standard the fatty acid spectra from skin surface sebum lipids of 17 test persons was taken after microwave-assisted hydrolysis, neutralization and extraction with n-hexane. Quantitative evaluation of the chromatograms exhibits that oleic acid predominates in the sebum of all test persons. In the second part of the work the chromatographic mobility (RE values) of fatty acid phenacyl esters is correlated with calculated physico-chemical parameters of the corresponding acids. The best linear correlation was found between the RE and the logP values. This is helpful for the structural elucidation of un-identified fatty acids in a chromatogram.