Double-bond location in monounsaturated fatty acids by dimethyl disulfide derivatization and mass spectrometry: Application to analysis of fatty acids in pheromone glands of four lepidoptera.

A rapid analytical procedure for the determination of the position of double bonds in mixtures of monounsaturated fatty acid methyl esters has been developed. The method is based on direct capillary GC-MS-EI analysis of dimethyl disulfide adducts. The procedure was applied to mixtures of monounsaturated fatty esters from pheromone gland extracts of three tortricids from theChoristoneura genus,C. fumiferana, C. occidentalis, andC. pinus pinus, and one noctuid from the Plusiinae subfamily,Plusia chalcites. A correlation was found between the known major pheromone components in the four species with the corresponding fatty acids. Some of the additional fatty acids may be precursors to as yet unidentified minor pheromone components, present in extremely small quantities, in these species.