Triacylglycerol determination based on fatty acid composition using chemometrics

Multivariate statistics were applied to analyse the relationships between fatty acids and triacylglycerols in virgin olive oil. The chemical significance of factors obtained by applying principal components analysis to both sets of variables was established, and this method is proposed as a useful tool for obtaining information about the biosynthetic route of fatty acids and its regulation. Finally, because both sets of data present the same latent structure, multiple regression analysis is proposed for determining the triacylglycerol composition of an oil according to its fatty acid composition.