I am hoping to find somebody who might know the gossypol content of cottonseed oil. Is gossypol available in high quantities in cottonseed oil? If not, where might I find an abundance of gossypol?
Here is a link to measurements of gossypol in cottonseed oil. I hope this is helpful.
http://irep.iium.edu.my/7223/1/Elwathig_%28Gossypol%29.pdf
It depends on how much gossypol you need for experiment:
1. From chemical company: You can also just buy gossypol from a company such as Sigma if you want plenty of them to do experiments [ http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/g8761?lang=en®ion=US ]
2. From cotton plant tissue: Gossypol is a yellow pigment present in gland sacs in cotton plant tissues, including seeds (see attached fig, the 'black dots'), which is used by the plants to ward-off pest attack. The seed of G. barbadense may contain up to 34g of gossypol/kg.
3. From cottonseed commercial products: Cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal have been used for human consumption (for example making cakes) and animal feeds (due to its plenty of proteins) respectively. However, Gossypol is toxic and can cause harm or death to human being and animals. So, all those products on the markets, including cottonseed oils and animal feeds, have been processed to remove the gossypol beforehand. That said, it will be hard for you to get abundance of gossypol from commercial products. Unless, you can obtain the 'crude (unprocessed)' cottonseed oil for gossypol from somewhere.
4. Due to the cost of removing the gossypols, industries have make investments in genetically engineering method to remove gossypol in the cotton seeds (and yet keep the gossypol in the areal part of the plants to ward-off pests). Recent breakthrough has been reported in PNAS (see attached paper)
Yeah Cotton seed contains gossypol and its contents varied in range is 1-2 % .
To my knowledge, gossypol is unique to unrefined cotton seed oil. Refining of the oil reduces the content substantially. Therefore, the refined cotton seed oil is used for edible purposes. Consumption of the unrefined oil (which contains) may cause many health disorders including sterility in males. It is also an antioxidant but not allowed in foods.
The amount of gossypol in cottonseed ranged between 30 - 40 g/kg depends on the variety or spp., area, agriculture such as type of irrigation.
After processing part of gossypol will remain in the cake other will be in the oil, however, will be removed by refining especially chemical refining.
Refined, bleached, deodorized cottonseed oil is edible.
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