Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) at the sn-2 position of triacylglycerols increases DHA incorporation in brown, but not in white adipose tissue, of hamsters

Abstract

We hypothesised that the incorporation of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) across adipose tissues will be higher when it is ingested as triacylglycerols (TAG) structured at the sn-2 position. Ten-week old male hamsters were allocated to 4 dietary treatments (n = 10): linseed oil (LSO-control group), fish oil (FO), fish oil ethyl esters (FO-EE) and structured DHA at the sn-2 position of TAG (DHA-SL) during 12 weeks. In opposition to the large variations found for fatty acid composition in retroperitoneal white adipose tissue (WAT), brown adipose tissue (BAT) was less responsive to diets. DHA was not found in subcutaneous and retroperitoneal WAT depots but it was successfully incorporated in BAT reaching the highest percentage in DHA-SL. The PCA on plasma hormones (insulin, leptin, adiponectin) and fatty acids discriminated BAT from WATs pointing towards an individual signature on fatty acid deposition, but did not allow for full discrimination of dietary treatments within each adipose tissue.

Keywords:

• Structured DHA
• sn-2 TAG
• n-3 PUFA
• white adipose tissue
• brown adipose tissue
• fatty acid composition
• hamster

Disclosure statement

The authors state that no conflict of interest exists.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through “Structured lipids: novel dietary strategies for improving human health” grant (AGL/25807/2011) and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Lisbon, Portugal) through CIISA project (UID/CVT/00276/2013). PAL is a researcher from the FCT “Ciência 2008” programme and Incentivo 2014 project (AGR/UI0276/2014). SVM is a recipient of an individual fellowship from FCT (SFRH/BPD/63019/2009).