Lipoxene: a new group of trihydroxy pentaenes of eicosapentaenoic acid derived from porcine leukocytes.

Incubation of porcine leukocytes with [1-14C]-15-hydroperoxyeicosapentaenoic acid (15-HPEPE) results in the formation of a group of polar metabolites which after separation and purification by RP-HPLC and SP-HPLC were found to be a series of new compounds containing three hydroxy groups and four conjugated double bonds. The structures of these new metabolites were established by U. V. spectrophotometry and GC/MS to be trihydroxy pentaenes of EPA, i.e., 5,6,15-trihydroxy-7,9,11,13,17-eicosapentaenoic acid and 5,14,15-trihydroxy-6,8,10,12,17-eicosapentaenoic acid. Because of the additional double bond at C17-18, these two new metabolites of EPA were proposed to be lipoxene A and lipoxene B, respectively.