Lack of fatty acid specificity in the lipolysis of oligo and polyunsaturated triacylglycerols by milk lipoprotein lipase.

Native soybean and rapeseed oils and native and rearranged cod liver and peanut oils were subjected to partial hydrolysis with milk lipoprotein lipase and the fatty acid composition and molecular association in the substrates and lipolysis products were determined. In both native and rearranged oils the lack of significant differences in the fatty acid composition and molecular association between the residual and total triacylglycerols suggested that all triacylglycerols were attacked by the lipoprotein lipase at about the same rate. Any enrichment of a specific fatty acid in the diacyl- or monoacylglycerol products of a native oil generally reflected the preferential association of the fatty acid with the 2-position, and to a lesser extent the sn-3-position of the glycerol molecule and was accompanied by a decreased level of the corresponding free fatty acid product. In general, the products of the rearranged oils closely resembled the original triacylglycerols in the fatty acid composition. It is concluded that lipoprotein lipase does not show any detectable specificity for the unsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids with double bonds located at carbons 3 to 19 from the carboxyl end of the fatty acid molecules. These findings are compatible with the possible binding of the substrate to lipoprotein lipase through atoms involved in the acyl ester groups of the triacylglycerol molecules.