Large scale individual omega-3 fatty acids isolation from marine oils by supercritic fluid chromatography

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Increasing evidence suggests that higher intake of omega-3 fatty acids may offer some degree of protection against coronary disease, cancers, depression and anxiety disorders. The most widely available source of omega-3 fatty acids is fish oil either directly as food, or dietary supplements. However, fish oil supplements, depending on their source and on the extraction process, contain variable relative ratios of omega-3 fatty acids. It has also been shown that EPA and DHA have different effects on the risk reduction of coronary heart disease. Recently, DPA emerged as a potentially superior molecule. Therefore, in order to study DPA biological activity it would be suitable to have access to its purified form. This chemical entity is rare in nature except in seal, an abundant resource in the North Atlantic region. SiliCycle has already enriched an oil devoid of saturated fatty acids from seal fat from which omega-3 fatty acids could be purified. As omega-3 fatty acid structures are very similar, a powerful separation technique, such as liquid chromatography is required. Supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) seems to be an ideal alternative technique. Supercritical CO2 used as mobile phase, evaporates fast from the collected fractions, is nontoxic (which is not the case for most organic solvents used in liquid chromatography) and environment friendly. Moreover, heavy metals are insoluble in supercritical CO2 and therefore they will be absent from the final product. The industrial partner in this project, SiliCycle, has the ability to produce highly selective, large capacity stationary phases to be used in this process. The University of Montreal is equipped with the appropriate SFC instruments and has the expertise to perform the required up-scaling of the separation. The purification process presented in this proposal would offer the first large scale separation method allowing production of individual omega-3 fatty acids in their unmodified form. SiliCycle has a strong interest in establishing such a purification facility in Eastern Canada.