The effect of chronic ethanol consumption on the fatty acid composition of phosphatidylinositol in rat liver microsomes as determined by gas chromatography and 1H-NMR.

Cell membranes and vesicles composed of extracted phospholipids isolated from rats chronically-fed ethanol develop a resistance to disordering by ethanol in vitro (membrane tolerance) and a decreased partitioning of ethanol into the membranes. The anionic lipid phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns) is the only microsomal phospholipid from the ethanol-fed rats that confers tolerance to vesicles of microsomal phospholipids from control rats in a paradigm where phospholipid classes are sequentially swapped. To investigate the molecular basis of this adaptation, the fatty acid content of microsomal PtdIns extracted from the livers of rats chronically fed ethanol for 5 weeks and their calorically-matched controls was analyzed by gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) and 1H-NMR spectroscopy. Chronic ethanol consumption caused an 8.4% decrease in arachidonic acid [20:4(n - 6)], a 20.0% increase in oleic acid [18: 1(n - 9)] and a 47.1% increase in the quantitatively minor fatty acid [20:3(n - 6)]. 1H-NMR was used to quantitatively assay compositional changes in the delta 5 olefinic moiety of the acyl chains in PtdIns, an approach that should be broadly applicable to other lipid systems. After chronic ethanol feeding PtdIns had decreased delta 5 unsaturates (-7.9% NMR, -8.2% GLC) and a corresponding increase in delta 5 saturates (+5.4% NMR, +5.3% GLC). In the other phospholipids, chronic ethanol feeding caused alterations in the fatty acid compositions specific for each phospholipid. PtdIns was the only microsomal phospholipid that exhibited a significant decrease in both the polyunsaturate pool and the ratio of the total olefinic content to the saturated fatty acid content. The major adaptive response in rat liver microsomal PtdIns to chronic ethanol administration involves a decrease in arachidonic acid [20:4 (n - 6)], which is partly compensated for by increases in oleic acid [18:1(n - 9)] and eicosatrienoic acid [20:3 (n - 6)], resulting in a depressed unsaturation and polyunsaturation index. The decreased unsaturation at the delta 5 position may have special functional relevance, due to the proximity of this position to the membrane surface, where ethanol is believed to reside. Whether these acyl changes are merely coincident with, or causative of, membrane tolerance requires further elucidation.