Investigation of commercial lecithin by 31P NMR in a ternary CUBO solvent

Many different ways have been devised over the years for analysing phospholipids in solution by 31P NMR. One promising method entails the use of the so-called CUBO solvent, a ternary mixture of dimethylformamide, triethylamine and guanidinium hydrochloride. As this interesting system seems to have been overlooked in the literature, we present here a study on the quantification of phospholipids and lysophospholipids contained in 10 samples of commercial lecithin using the CUBO/31P NMR method. Cluster analysis and principal component analysis of the NMR data showed clear differences among the samples according to the actual lecithin producer. Multivariate analysis of the chemical and physical parameters of the samples confirmed these differences.