Seed Oil Quantity and Fatty Acid Composition of Different Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae Rhamnoides L.) Wild Populations in Iran

Abstract

Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) is a valuable multipurpose medicinal plant belonging to Elaeagnaceae family. In this study, oil content and fatty acid composition of seed oil from 20 sea buckthorn wild populations of Iran were evaluated in 2014 and 2015. Oil extraction was done using n-hexane solvent in a Soxhlet apparatus and then GC analysis of fatty acid methyl esters was performed. The highest and lowest amount of seed oil content in two years were obtained from Sarein and Kejel populations, respectively (3.88 to 8.63% in 2014 and from 4.07 to 9.66% in 2015). Importance of seed oil is related to it’s highly amount of unsaturated fatty acids. Maximum content of oleic acid cis were existed in Kelavenga (21.19%) on 2014. The highest value of oleic acid trans were related to Shahrestanak (6.34%) in 2015. Maximum content of linoleic acid in 2014 were existed in Baladeh (42.03%) on 2015. The highest linolenic acid content were obtained from Dehdar (30.73%) in 2014. Factor analysis based on PCA revealed, first three components (PC1–PC3) explained 63.86% of the total variation. The first component (PC1) was contributed by some traits such as seed oil percentage, Palmitoleic acid, oleic acid trance and linoleic acid contents with about 29% of total variation. Hierarchical cluster analysis divided the populations into four main groups with high diversity. Wide range of variation across the sea buckthorn populations in seed oil traits could be exploited for selection of suitable genotypes to improvement and commercial exploitation of this plant.