Multidimensional Quality Profiling of Antarctic Krill Oil: Interrelationships Among Lipid Composition, Oxidative Status, Color, and Sensory Attributes

Antarctic krill oil (AKO) contains a complex lipid matrix characterized by abundant phospholipids and long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which limits the usefulness of any single index for quality assessment. Here, 19 commercial AKO capsule samples were evaluated across multiple physicochemical and sensory dimensions, including primary and secondary oxidation, color, sensory properties, fatty acid and phospholipid composition, tocopherol, etc. Additionality, relationships among these attributes were explored. Marked differences among samples were evident in oxidative, compositional, colorimetric, and sensory characteristics. POV and AnV were not significantly associated, suggesting that primary and secondary oxidation varied independently across the sample set. Increasing POV coincided with greater lightness and lower redness and yellowness, whereas AnV was unrelated to color but increased with rancid odor intensity. EPA and DHA exhibited strong co-variation, and AV was closely associated with lysophosphatidylcholine. Elemental concentrations showed little correspondence with POV or AnV. PC1 and PC2 accounted for 27.1% and 16.9% of the dataset variability, respectively, showing that sample differentiation involved several compositional, oxidative, colorimetric, and sensory dimensions. These findings indicate that multidimensional profiling provides a more informative representation of commercial AKO quality than assessment based on a single conventional parameter.