Glycerophospholipids (GPLs) are typical membrane lipids with important physiological and pharmacological functions, but little is known about their distribution characteristics in economic seaweeds. This study established a systematic evaluation method, including conventional 2D 1H-31P heteronuclear multiple bond correlation (HMBC) NMR for identifying GPLs and 1D 31P NMR for determining the contents, which were then applied to reveal subclasses characteristics of GPLs in 18 economic seaweeds in Asia. The results indicated that phosphatidylglycerol (PG) was the characteristic GPL subclass distributed in all of the 18 seaweeds (ranging from 0.08 to 1.75‰), generally with higher contents than that of known terrestrial plants. The characteristic chemical shifts of protons in the GPLs headgroup (H-1') together with protons in the backbone (H-3) were summarized through 1H-31P HMBC spectrum, which were helpful in assigning GPL subclasses.
Keywords: glycerophospholipids; 1H−31P HMBC; phosphatidylglycerol; quantitative 31P NMR; seaweeds.