Effects of hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acids on fatty acid esterification in phospholipids and insulin secretion in pancreatic islets.

The ability of lipoxygenase products to become incorporated into islet cell phospholipids and to affect fatty acid mobilization was investigated. Isolated intact islets or homogenized islets were incubated with tritiated 5-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (HETE), 12-HETE, 15-HETE, the leukotrienes C4 and D4, or prostaglandin E2. Tritiated 5-HETE and 12-HETE were largely esterified into phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) of intact islet membranes. Glucose stimulation increased [3H]5-HETE esterification to islet PC and PE. In islet homogenates, tritiated 5-HETE, 12-HETE, 15-HETE and arachidonic acid (AA) were also esterified into endogenous PC and PE, with less incorporation in phosphatidylinositol (PI) or phosphatidylserine. Addition of exogenous lysophospholipid acceptors potentiated the esterification of [3H]5-HETE to PC especially; [3H]AA was uniformly esterified to exogenous lysophospholipids. In addition, unlabeled 5-HETE (40 nM to 8 microM) affected the incorporation of [3H]AA into PC and PE of homogenates in a biphasic manner, whereas unlabeled AA inhibited [3H]AA incorporation into phospholipids in a concentration-dependent manner. Glucose (8.5 mM) stimulated the loss of labeled AA from prelabeled islet PC and PI. On the other hand, 5-HETE (40 nM) increased AA recovery in PC, PI, and PE of prelabeled islets, and HETE antagonized the glucose-stimulated release of AA from PC and PE. A 100-fold higher concentration of 5-HETE increased the glucose-stimulated loss of AA from phospholipids in prelabeled islets. Nanomolar concentrations of 5-HETE elicited a rapid and transient increase in insulin release, which was additive to the release response to a submaximal stimulatory concentration of glucose, whereas micromolar 5-HETE did not affect insulin release. Thus, pancreatic islets not only esterify HETE into phospholipids, but HETE also alters the turnover of AA in membrane phospholipids. HETE-induced changes in islet membrane fatty acid composition and/or AA mobilization may modulate stimulus-secretion coupling.