Dietary fatty acids modulate liver mitochondrial cardiolipin content and its fatty acid composition in rats with non alcoholic fatty liver disease.

No data are reported on changes in mitochondrial membrane phospholipids in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. We determined the content of mitochondrial membrane phospholipids from rats with non alcoholic liver steatosis, with a particular attention for cardiolipin (CL) content and its fatty acid composition, and their relation with the activity of the mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes. Different dietary fatty acid patterns leading to steatosis were explored. With high-fat diet, moderate macrosteatosis was observed and the liver mitochondrial phospholipid class distribution and CL fatty acids composition were modified. Indeed, both CL content and its C18:2n-6 content were increased with liver steatosis. Moreover, mitochondrial ATP synthase activity was positively correlated to the total CL content in liver phospholipid and to CL C18:2n-6 content while other complexes activity were negatively correlated to total CL content and/or CL C18:2n-6 content of liver mitochondria. The lard-rich diet increased liver CL synthase gene expression while the fish oil-rich diet increased the (n-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids content in CL. Thus, the diet may be a significant determinant of both the phospholipid class content and the fatty acid composition of liver mitochondrial membrane, and the activities of some of the respiratory chain complex enzymes may be influenced by dietary lipid amount in particular via modification of the CL content and fatty acid composition in phospholipid.