Fatty acid pattern of pancreatic islet lipids in Goto-Kakizaki rats

Perturbations of fatty acid content and pattern were recently documented in epididymal and parametrial lipids, as well as plasma, liver, spleen, and brain phospholipids and triglycerides of Goto-Kakizaki rats (GK). This study extends such an investigation to pancreatic islets from both control and GK rats. Groups of 5,500-14,560 islets were obtained from either control or GK rats (n = 3 in each case) and examined for their lipid fatty acid content. In the islet triglycerides, the major difference between control and GK rats, i.e., a higher C18:2ω6 content in GK rats, was similar to that found in liver triglycerides. In the islet phospholipids, however, a number of differences between control and GK rats, concerning saturated, monodesaturated, and long-chain polyunsaturated ω3 and ω6 fatty acids, were often not similar to those found in liver phospholipids. The present study reveals a number of anomalies in the fatty acid pattern of islet phospholipids in GK rats, often differing from those encountered in liver phospholipids. Such a tissue specificity was borne out by the finding that, even in control animals, the situation found in islet phospholipids differed from that recorded in liver phospholipids.