Structural Properties of Triglycerides of Human Adipose Tissue, Heart, and Liver

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Abstract
In order to determine to what extent triglycerides from different human tissues have individual characteristics and whether these patterns are altered by disease, triglycerides from autopsy samples of human perirenal adipose tissue (PRT), heart, and liver were examined for their fatty acid composition and some aspects of their structure (pancreatic lipase hydrolysis and argentation chromatography). When cases were ranked according to the linoleate level of the PRT, the upper half with higher levels consisted mainly of well-nourished persons and the lower half contained more emaciated persons. The cases with higher PRT linoleate levels had, in general, higher total lipid levels in the PRT. Tissue specificity was seen in the tendency for more of the available palmitate to be esterified in the 2-position of heart triglycerides than in PRT or liver triglycerides and in differences in myristate-to-palmitate ratios in PRT and heart triglycerides. Liver triglycerides contained more palmitate, showed a greater tendency for stearate to occur in the 2-position, and had a higher level of the structural type SO2. Whether or not the underlying diseases associated with these different nutritional states influenced these differences remains to be seen.