Stereospecific analysis of high melting triglycerides of bovine milk fat and their biosynthetic origin.

Fatty acid composition, triglyceride molecular weight distributions, melting ranges, amount of cis and trans isomers, and stereospecific fatty acid distributions were determined for high melting triglyceride fractions and bovine milk fat free of them. Distributions of fatty acids on the high melting triglycerides differed from distributions of fatty acids in the rest of the milk fat triglycerides. The significance of these results is evaluated in relation to the biosynthetic origin of high melting triglycerides. Stereospecific distributions of these fatty acids support previous speculations that the monoglyceride pathway may play a significant role in biosynthesis of high melting triglyceride in bovine milk fat.