Messa a punto e validazione di metodi analitici aspecifici online impieganti strumentazione a Trasformata di Fourier per la determinazione di macro e microanaliti in latte ovino

Sheep milk (SM) is, apart from bovine milk, the most important dairy food worldwide. Sardinia, Italy, is one of the most significant producer, accounting for up to 20% of the global total. Despite this, only little attention has been paid to the assessment of rapid, low-cost and reliable analytical methods devoted to measure minor components in SM. Because of the known effects of fatty acids (FA) on human health, the development of a quick, inexpensive, and accurate method to directly quantify the FA profile in SM may be a valuable tool to improve the payment system in use in Sardinia. Due the fact that the mid-infrared (MIR) spectrometry method appears to be a useful method for measuring milk FA profile, the main goal of this study is to assess a MIR method capable of quantifying the FA in SM. 250 samples of SM, collected in different areas of Sardinia from 2011 to 2013, were analyzed by a validated gaschromatographic method, while their MIR spectra were recorded. The mathematical method adopted to predict the contents of FA in SM, based on partial least squares (PLS) regression combined with i) a genetic algorithm or ii) a manual selection of IR frequencies according to the nature of each FA, has allowed us to obtain a very good accuracy of prediction for each FA in SM.