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.