Analysis of Free Fatty Acids on the Fingertips by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

This investigation studied the efficiency of high performance liquid chromatography in the determination of free fatty acids present on the fingertips, and assessed the quantitative relationship between skin fatty acids and the degree of microbial contamination. Automated surgical scrub was utilized to eliminate the microbial contamination.

The high performance liquid chromatography provided excellent separation of skin fatty acids for evaluation with the bacterial counts. The fatty acid peaks identified ranged in chain length from C12 through C32. All the fatty acids evaluated showed positive correlation with the bacterial counts with the exception of one acid which had an inverse relationship but none were statistically significant. Finally, the surgical scrub chromatograms showed that the straight chain acids C19 and C21 were lower in concentration than C23 and C25; also, C26 was lower in concentration than C28 and C30.

It was evident from the data that fatty acids which have been shown to be bacteriostatic in vitro do not demonstrate the same property on the fingertips. The finding of lower concentration of C19, C21, and C26 than longer chain acids is inconsistent with simple two carbon addition, and indicates there is possible branching at these points in metabolic pathway of fatty acid synthesis.