Raman and near Infrared Spectroscopy for Quantification of Fatty Acids in Muscle Tissue—A Salmon Case Study

• Published in: Foods
• Main Authors: Nils Kristian Afseth, Katinka Dankel, Petter Vejle Andersen, Gareth Frank Difford, Siri Storteig Horn, Anna Sonesson, Borghild Hillestad, Jens Petter Wold, Erik Tengstrand
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2022
• Subjects: Raman spectroscopy; NIR spectroscopy; fatty acid composition; EPA; DHA; salmon; Chemical technology; TP1-1185; Atlantic salmon
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11070962; https://doaj.org/article/5c466fed5f9341e2949134ba8538d132

The aim of the present study was to critically evaluate the potential of using NIR and Raman spectroscopy for prediction of fatty acid features and single fatty acids in salmon muscle. The study was based on 618 homogenized salmon muscle samples acquired from Atlantic salmon representing a one year-class nucleus, fed the same high fish oil feed. NIR and Raman spectra were used to make regression models for fatty acid features and single fatty acids measured by gas chromatography. The predictive performance of both NIR and Raman was good for most fatty acids, with R 2 above 0.6. Overall, Raman performed marginally better than NIR, and since the Raman models generally required fewer components than respective NIR models to reach high and optimal performance, Raman is likely more robust for measuring fatty acids compared to NIR. The fatty acids of the salmon samples co-varied to a large extent, a feature that was exacerbated by the overlapping peaks in NIR and Raman spectra. Thus, the fatty acid related variation of the spectroscopic data of the present study can be explained by only a few independent principal components. For the Raman spectra, this variation was dominated by functional groups originating from long-chain polyunsaturated FAs like EPA and DHA. By exploring the independent EPA and DHA Raman models, spectral signatures similar to the respective pure fatty acids could be seen. This proves the potential of Raman spectroscopy for single fatty acid prediction in muscle tissue.