foods Article Fatty Acid Profile of Lipid Fractions of Mangalitza (Sus scrofa domesticus) from Northern Romania: A GC-MS-PCA Approach Cornelia Petroman 1,† , Gabriela Popescu 2,† , Raymond-Nandy Szakal 3 , Virgil Păunescu 4,5 , Lavinia P. Drăghia 4,5 , Gabriel S. Bujancă 6 , Cosmina A. Chirilă 3 , Daniel I. Hădărugă 7 , Loredana Văduva 2 , Nicoleta G. Hădărugă 3, * and Ioan Petroman 2   Citation: Petroman, C.; Popescu, G.; Szakal, R.-N.; P ˘ aunescu, V.; Dr˘ aghia, L.P.; Bujanc˘ a, G.S.; Chiril ˘ a, C.A.; H˘ ad˘ arug˘ a, D.I.; V ˘ aduva, L.; H˘ ad˘ arug˘ a, N.G.; et al. Fatty Acid Profile of Lipid Fractions of Mangalitza (Sus scrofa domesticus) from Northern Romania: A GC-MS-PCA Approach. Foods 2021, 10, 242. https://doi.org/10.3390/ foods10020242 Received: 27 December 2020 Accepted: 21 January 2021 Published: 26 January 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Department II—Economy and Company Financing, Banat’s University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine “King Michael I of Romania” from Timi¸ soara, Calea Aradului 119, 300645 Timi¸ soara, Romania; corneliapetroman@usab-tm.ro 2 Department of Rural Management and Development, Banat’s University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine “King Michael I of Romania” from Timi¸ soara, Calea Aradului 119, 300645 Timi¸ soara, Romania; gabrielapopescu@usab-tm.ro (G.P.); loredanavaduva@usab-tm.ro (L.V.); ioan_petroman@usab-tm.ro (I.P.) 3 Department of Food Science, Banat’s University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine “King Michael I of Romania” from Timi¸ soara, Calea Aradului 119, 300645 Timi¸ soara, Romania; raymondnalbu@gmail.com (R.-N.S.); cosminachirila@yahoo.com (C.A.C.) 4 Department of Physiology and Immunology, “Victor Babe¸ s” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Eftimie Murgu Sq. 2, 300041 Timi¸ soara, Romania; vpaunescu@umft.ro (V.P.); draghia_lavinia@yahoo.com (L.P.D.) 5 Centre for Gene and Cellular Therapies in the Treatment of Cancer—OncoGen, Clinical County Hospital of Timi¸ soara, Liviu Rebreanu Blvd. 156, 300736 Timi¸ soara, Romania 6 Department of Food Control, Banat’s University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine “King Michael I of Romania” from Timi¸ soara, Calea Aradului 119, 300645 Timi¸ soara, Romania; gabrielbujanca@yahoo.com 7 Department of Applied Chemistry, Organic and Natural Compounds Engineering, Polytechnic University of Timi¸ soara, Carol Telbisz 6, 300001 Timi¸ soara, Romania; daniel.hadaruga@upt.ro * Correspondence: nico_hadaruga@yahoo.com; Tel.: +40-256-277-423 † These authors contributed equally to this work. They are both principal authors. Abstract: Mangalitza pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) becomes more popular in European countries. The goal of this study was to evaluate the fatty acid profile of the raw and thermally processed Mangalitza hard fat from Northern Romania. For the first time, the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry- Principal component analysis technique (GC-MS-PCA)—was applied to evaluate the dissimilarity of Mangalitza lipid fractions. Three specific layers of the hard fat of Mangalitza from Northern Romania were subjected to thermal treatment at 130 ◦ C for 30 min. Derivatized samples were analyzed by GC-MS. The highest relative content was obtained for oleic acid (methyl ester) in all hard fat layers (36.1–42.4%), while palmitic acid was found at a half (21.3–24.1%). Vaccenic or elaidic acids (trans) were found at important concentrations of 0.3–4.1% and confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. These concentrations are consistently higher in thermally processed top and middle lipid layers, even at double values. The GC-MS-PCA coupled technique allows us to classify the unprocessed and processed Mangalitza hard fat specific layers, especially through the relative concentrations of vaccenic/elaidic, palmitic, and stearic acids. Further studies are needed in order to evaluate the level of degradation of various animal fats by the GC-MS-PCA technique. Keywords: fatty acid profile; lipid fractions; Mangalitza; Sus scrofa domesticus; aldehyde degradation compounds; gas chromatography—mass spectrometry; principal component analysis; GC-MS-PCA coupled technique 1. Introduction Mangalitza (Sus scrofa domesticus) is a domesticated pig of the wild Sus scrofa ferus. It becomes more popular not only in the Balkan countries but in all of Europe. There are Foods 2021, 10, 242. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10020242 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods