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Artificial Rearing of Infant Mice Leads to n‐3 Fatty Acid Deficiency in Cardiac, Neural and Peripheral Tissues
Author(s) -
Hussein Nahed,
Fedorova Irina,
Moriguchi Toru,
Hamazaki Kei,
Kim HeeYong,
Hoshiba Junji,
Salem Norman
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
lipids
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.601
H-Index - 120
eISSN - 1558-9307
pISSN - 0024-4201
DOI - 10.1007/s11745-009-3318-2
Subject(s) - docosahexaenoic acid , linoleic acid , arachidonic acid , fatty acid , docosapentaenoic acid , biology , essential fatty acid , phosphatidylcholine , eicosapentaenoic acid , phospholipid , biochemistry , polyunsaturated fatty acid , membrane , enzyme
The ability to control the fatty acid content of the diet during early development is a crucial requirement for a one‐generation model of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; 22:6n3) deficiency. A hand feeding method using artificial rearing (AR) together with sterile, artificial milk was employed for feeding mice from postnatal day 2–15. The pups were fed an n‐3 fatty acid adequate (3% α‐linolenic acid (LNA; 18:3n3) + 1% 22:6n3) or a deficient diet (0.06% 18:3n3) with linoleic acid (LA; 18:2n6) as the only dietary source of essential fatty acids by AR along with a dam‐reared control group (3.1% 18:3n3). The results indicate that restriction of n‐3 fatty acid intake during postnatal development leads to markedly lower levels of brain, retinal, liver, plasma and heart 22:6n3 at 20 weeks of age with replacement by docosapentaenoic acid (DPAn6; 22:5n6), arachidonic acid (ARA; 20:4n6) and docosatetraenoic acid (DTA; 22:4n6). A detailed analysis of phospholipid classes of heart tissue indicated that phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine and cardiolipin were the major repositories of 22:6n3, reaching 40, 29 and 15%, respectively. A novel heart cardiolipin species containing four 22:6n3 moieties is described. This is the first report of the application of artificially rearing to mouse pup nutrition; this technique will facilitate dietary studies of knockout animals as well as the study of essential fatty acid (EFA) functions in the cardiovascular, neural and other organ systems.