The nature of the fatty acids stored by the liver in the fat-deficiency disease of rats

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The livers of rats fed on a fat-free diet were free from acids containing four or more double bonds, but yielded a hitherto unknown acid, C20H34O2, its hexabromide melting at 202-4. Rats kept for a long time on the fat-free diet and then fed with very small doses of methyl linoleate contained arachidonic or some more highly unsaturated acid which must have been synthesised from the linoleic acid given. The same dihydro-arachidonic acid as occurred in the negative controls was probably also present. Rats fed on the fat-free diet and then dosed with an adequate supply of methyl linolenate synthesised an acid which from the Br content of its bromide appears to have been a mixture of arachidonic and doco-sapentenoic acids. A fortnight after dosing fat-free rats with the C22 hexenoic acid prepared from codliver oil, the livers contained the C22 pentenoic acid. Linoleic and linolenic acids appear to be essential for the production of more highly unsaturated acids which enable the animal to store fat in its depots and tissues.