[Conversion of erucic acid in subcellular fractions from liver, kidneys and heart of rat, 8 min after intravenous injection (author's transl)].

Rats were intravenously injected with albumin-bound [14 14C] erucic acid, and after 8 min the 14C radioactivity (RA) of the fatty acids were studied in mitochondria, microsomes and other fractions of liver, kidneys and heart cells. 1. In liver, which contained 15% of the injected RA, oleic acid (18 : 1) was the main fatty acid (FA) formed (26% of the 14C recovered) whereas in kidneys (0,53% of the injected RA) the proportion of nervonic acid (24 : 1) was higher (20%) than that of 18 : 1 (14%). No appreciable transformation was encountered in heart, which contained 0,53% of the injected RA. 2. In liver, the microsomes showed the higher converted 14C RA (45%), mainly as 18 : 1 (33%), much higher than in mitochondria (11%), whereas the amount of total 14C FA was a little higher in the latter fraction. 3. In kidneys, the mitochondrial and microsomal fractions contained the same percentage of 14C oleic acid (15%), whereas nervonic acid was recovered in higher proportion, 29 and 20%, in microsomes and in mitochondria respectively. 4. Results show that the same kind of metabolic activity, i.e., shortening or elongation, was observed in the whole cell as that previously shown with isolated fractions. However, mitochondrial oxidation and exchanges of transformed fatty acids between organelles can modify the extent of the phenomenon.