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CONCORDANCE AND CONTROVERSY IN DETERMINING THE OMEGA-3 INDEX IN PLASMA AND RED BLOOD CELLS MEMBRANE

AMELIA TERO-VESCAN¹, SZENDE VANCEA^2*, ADINA HUŢANU³, RÉKA BORKA-BALÁS⁴, MINODORA DOBREANU³

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Omega 3 fatty acids present immunomodulatory properties demonstrated by numerous studies. Accurate determination of fatty acids (FA) in different biological matrices is of special physiopathological and clinical value. The aims of our study were to develop a LC/MS method for the determination of main FA in plasma and red blood cell membranes (RBC) and to establish a possible correlation between the amount of omega 3 acids in plasma and in the membrane of RBC. Determinations were performed on a Kinetex C18 column (50 x 3 mm, 2.6 μm), using an isocratic mixture of acetonitrile: 0.2% acetic acid in water as the mobile phase, at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min. The method permitted the separation of nine FA, plasma concentration and, respectively, RBC membrane values were used for the calculation of parameters (ratios) of clinical interest. The existence of a correlation between plasma levels of certain FA and their incorporation into RBC membrane was determined on 26 blood samples. The study showed a significant difference (p < 0.001) between plasma concentrations /RBC membrane values, and on the other hand, that there is a correlation between the AA/DHA (r = 0.7540) and AA/(EPA + DHA) (r = 0.7807) ratio value in plasma and RBC membrane and a weak correlation between plasma levels of AA/EPA ratio (r = 0.3906) or Omega-3 Index (r = 0.4991) and the FA levels into the RBC membrane.