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Nutrient Metabolism

Quantitative Role of Plasma Free Fatty Acids in the Supply of Arachidonic Acid to Extrahepatic Tissues in Rats¹

Li Zhou^*, Bengt Vessby and Ake Nilsson^*2

^* Gastroenterology Division, Department of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden; and the Clinical Nutrition Research Unit, Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

²To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ake.nilsson{at}med.lu.se.

Local desaturation-elongation of linoleic acid, uptake of 2-arachidonyl-lysophosphatidylcholine, and uptake plasma unesterified arachidonic acid (AA) are assumed to be the most important sources of AA for extrahepatic tissues. In this study, we investigated the clearance rate as well as the retention rate of plasma unesterified ¹⁴C-AA in different tissues in fed rats. The initial half-life of ¹⁴C-AA in rat plasma was 3.8 s, and the average pool size of rat plasma unesterified AA was 76 nmol. We calculated that 604 nmol of unesterified AA was cleared from the rat plasma per minute. The retention rate of AA per gram of tissue in the heart (13 nmol/min per g), lungs (12 nmol/min per g), kidney (8 nmol/min per g) and bone marrow (6 nmol/min per g) was higher than that in other tissues but was lower than that in liver (23 nmol/min per g). The total uptake was highest in skeletal muscle (249 ± 27 nmol/min), in liver (226 ± 15 nmol/min) and in bone marrow (39 ± 3 nmol/min). More than 80% of retained ¹⁴C-AA was found in phospholipids in most tissues. The conclusion is that despite the low concentration plasma unesterified, AA is a major source of phospholipid AA in several extrahepatic tissues in rats, due to its rapid turnover and selective acylation into phospholipids.

KEY WORDS: • arachidonic acid • clearance • free fatty acids • retention rate • tissue uptake

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