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Brain Neutral Lipids and Phospholipids Are Modified by Long-Term Feeding of Beef Tallow vs. Corn Oil Diets^1,2,3,4,

Ruth S. MacDonald^*,,**,5, Wen Zhang^*, Jian-Ping Zhang and Grace Y. Sun^,**,

^* Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition Department of Biochemistry ^** Department of Graduate Nutrition Area Program, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211

Previous studies examining the response of brain lipids to dietary fat modification have not quantified neutral lipids such as diacylglycerols (DG) and triacylglycerols (TG). In this study we measured the concentrations of neutral lipids and phospholipids, and their fatty acid profiles, in the cerebra of rats fed defined diets containing either beef tallow (BT) or corn oil (CO) at 12% or 37% of energy. The diets were fed to rat pups beginning at 18 d of age and continued for 31 wk. The proportion of brain linoleic acid [18:2(n-6)] in TG from CO-fed rats was two- to fourfold greater than in BT-fed rats. Although 18:2(n-6) levels were higher in serum and brain TG of rats fed CO, differences in other TG fatty acid concentrations in serum were not reflected in the brain. Rats fed CO diets had higher concentrations of 18:2(n-6) in brain phospholipids as well as neutral lipids compared with rats fed BT diets, and the differences were greater in rats fed 37% rather than 12% of energy as fat. Differences in other polyunsaturated fatty acids associated with dietary fat composition were also found among the brain phospholipids. Most notably, the concentration of docosapentaenoic acid [22:5(n-6)] in brain phospholipids was highest in rats fed diets containing the lowest concentrations of -linolenic acid [18:3(n-3)]. A concentration of 0.1 mg 18:3(n-3)/g diet appeared to be adequate to prevent elevation of 22:5(n-6) in brain phospholipids. These results demonstrate that consumption of a low fat diet (12% of energy) primarily comprised of saturated fats may potentiate an 18:3(n-3) deficiency in brain of rats.

KEY WORDS: • triglyceride • phospholipids • brain • dietary fat • rats

¹ Presented in part at Experimental Biology 95, April 1995, Atlanta, GA [Zhang, W., Zhang, J-P., Sun, G. Y. & MacDonald, R. S. (1995) Modification of fatty acid distribution in rat brain lipids by dietary fat composition. FASEB J. 9: A2683 (abs.)]

² Supported by National Live Stock and Meat Board Grant; University of Missouri, Food for the 21st Century, Nutrition Cluster Program.

³ The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

⁴ Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Series Number 12,329.

⁵ To whom reprint requests should be addressed.

Manuscript received 1 June 1995. Revision accepted 16 February 1996.

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