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Dietary Essential Fatty Acids Change the Fatty Acid Profile of Rat Neural Mitochondria Over Time¹

Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada M5S 1A8

This experiment examined the time course over which the amount of dietary essential fatty acids (EFA) affects brain mitochondrial fatty acids. Weanling rats were fed 20% (wt/wt) fat diets that contained either 4 or 15% (wt/wt of diet) EFA for 1, 2, 3 or 6 wk or a 10% EFA diet for 3 or 6 wk. The EFA ratio [18:2(n-6)/18:3(n-3)] of all diets was 30. Fatty acid analysis of brain mitochondrial phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine and cardiolipin revealed that the largest dietary effect was on 18:2(n-6), which was 30% higher in rats fed the 15 vs. 4% EFA diets after 1 wk. This difference increased to twofold by 3 wk and was still twofold after 6 wk. These results demonstrate several facts: 1) the response of 18:2(n-6) in cardiolipin to dietary EFA is very fast and large, relative to changes in other quantitatively major fatty acids observed in weanling rats; 2) the 18:2(n-6) level in neural cardiolipin stabilizes after 3 wk of feeding at a level dependent upon the amount of dietary EFA; and 3) at least one neural fatty acid, 18:2(n-6), is very sensitive to amounts of dietary EFA that are well above the animal's EFA requirement.

KEY WORDS: • essential fatty acids • neural fatty acids • rats • cardiolipin • linoleic acid

¹ Supported by grants from the Medical Research Council of Canada and the International Life Sciences Institute-Nutrition Foundation. JRD was the recipient of a Medical Research Council Studentship.

² Present address: Neurological Research Unit, Livingston Hall, Room 110, Montreal General Hospital, 1625 Pine Ave., Montreal, PQ, Canada H3G 1A4.

³ To whom reprint requests should be addressed.

Manuscript received 14 January 1991. Revision accepted 15 April 1991.