Effects of a fish oil diet on the metabolism of endogenous (n-6) and (n-3) fatty acids in rat neutrophils.

The present study was carried out to define more precisely how dietary (n-3) fatty acids mediate leukotriene and phospholipid metabolism in neutrophils. Neutrophils from chow-fed rats did not synthesize detectable levels of LTB5 or 5-hydroxyeicosapentanenoic acid. The ratio of esterified 20:4(n-6)/20:5(n-3) in the phospholipids of neutrophils from rats fed a corn oil/fish oil diet was 4.6. The ratio of LTB4/LTB5 made by these cells was 2.6, thus suggesting that 20:5(n-3) release and/or subsequent metabolism was somewhat more efficient than for 20:4(n-6). When tritiated lyso-platelet activating factor was added to neutrophils from chow-fed rats, it was deactivated primarily by acylation with arachidonic acid. With the fish oil-fed animals both arachidonic acid and 20:5(n-3) were transferred to deactivate lyso-platelet activating factor. Molecular species analysis of the resulting radioactive 1-O-alkyl-2-acyl-sn-glycerol-3-phosphocholine showed that 20:5(n-3) pairs with the same 1-O-alkyl groups and in approximately the same ratio as does arachidonate. Collectively, these studies show that once 20:5(n-3) is incorporated into neutrophil lipids it is metabolized in a similar way as is arachidonate.