Myocardial metabolism of radioiodinated methyl-branched fatty acids

Methylated fatty acids labeled with radioactive iodine have been proposed as a means of studying regional myocardial uptake of fatty acids in man. To investigate the methylated fatty acid that is best adapted for an assessment of uptake, we have studied the influence of the number and the position of the methyl groups of IFA intracellular metabolism; 16-iodo-2-methyl-hexadecanoic (mono-alpha), 16-iodo-2,2-methyl hexadecanoic (di-alpha), 16-iodo-3-methyl-hexadecanoic (mono-beta), and 16-iodo-3,3-methyl-hexadecanoic (di-beta) acids were injected into the coronary arteries of isolated rat hearts. Intracellular analysis shows that the degradation of mono-alpha was always lower than that of IHA and the storage was always much higher. The differences between mono-beta and IHA were similar to those observed with mono-alpha, but were much more pronounced. With the two dimethylated IFAs there was an inhibition of both oxidation and esterification which led to an accumulation of free FAs in myocardial cells. In conclusion, mono-beta, di-alpha, and di-beta are potentially suitable for studying the cellular uptake of IFA since all of them, and particularly the dimethylated IFAs, have a low oxidation rate.