In vivo incorporation of lauric acid into rat adipose tissue triacylglycerols.

An in vivo approach was taken to examine fatty acid esterification in adipose tissue using a coconut oil-enriched diet. Rats were fed a diet containing coconut oil (50% lauric acid) for six weeks. Triacylglycerols from perirenal adipose tissue were fractionated by silver nitrate-thin layer chromatography and, then, preparative gas chromatography. The distribution of 169 triacylglycerol types accounting for 97% of total triacylglycerols was determined. There was evidence for a very high content of mixed triacylglycerols composed of intermediate (12:0 and 14:0) and long acyl moieties. No significant differences were observed between the experimental distribution of triacylglycerol types and the random distribution, calculated from the total fatty acid composition. This indicated that most long chain triacylglycerols stored before coconut oil feeding would have been rearranged after the six weeks of coconut oil feeding. The experimental proportion of trilauroylglycerol reached 2%, as expected from its random proportion, and the proportions of dilauroylacylglycerols were slightly higher than the random values. Present results were compared with those previously obtained from triacylglycerols of adipose tissue of rats fed a low-fat standard diet. From our results and those of other authors, it is suggested that lauric acid is a good substrate for sn-glycero-3-phosphate acyltransferase and diacylglycerol acyltransferase in rat adipose tissue.