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Policosanol Contents and Composition of Grain Sorghum Kernels and Dried Distillers Grains

¹Dept. of Food Science and Human Nutrition, and Institute for Molecular Biology and Genetics, Chonbuk National University, Jeonju, Jeonbuk, 561-756, Korea. ²Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0726. ³Corresponding author. Phone: 402-472-9337. Fax: 402-472-6338. E-mail: cweller1@unl.edu ⁴Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0919. ⁵Industrial Agricultural Products Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0730.

Grain sorghum can be a major source of policosanols, long-chained alcohols, that have beneficial physiological activities. Sorghum dried distillers grains (DDG), a by-product of ethanol production from grain sorghum, contain a large amount of policosanols. Content and composition of policosanols in long-chained lipids extracted from grain sorghum kernels and DDG were determined. Long-chained lipids were extracted using hot hexane or hot ethanol. The major components of the long-chained lipids extracted from grain sorghum kernels, as determined using HPLC, were policosanols (37–44%), aldehydes (44–55%), and acids (4–5%). Long-chained lipids from DDG contained 52% policosanols, 23% aldehydes, 6.4% acids, and 17% wax esters/steryl esters. Composition of policosanols in DDG matched the composition in grain sorghum kernels, as determined by gas chromatography, even though the content of policosanols in DDG was greater than the content in grain sorghum kernels. Policosonal composition ranges were 0–1% C22:0, 0–3% C24:0, 6–8% C26:0, 1% C27:0, 43–47% C28:0, 1–2% C29:0, 40–43% C30:0, and 1–4% C32:0.