Premium
The Kinetics of Fatty Acid Uptake By Paramecium Tetraurelia
Author(s) -
REUTER STEVEN F.,
PRAIRIE RICHARD L.,
KANESHIRO EDNA S.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of eukaryotic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.067
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1550-7408
pISSN - 1066-5234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1550-7408.1993.tb04930.x
Subject(s) - kinetics , fatty acid , biology , biochemistry , paramecium , facilitated diffusion , free fatty acid receptor , transporter , biophysics , polyunsaturated fatty acid , membrane , gene , physics , quantum mechanics
. The kinetics of radiolabeled fatty acid uptake by the ciliate Paramecium tetraurelia was examined on a homologous series of saturated, straight chain fatty acids of even carbon numbers. Uptake rates increased with chain length from acetate to palmitate. Saturation kinetics was demonstrated for most fatty acids examined, thus ruling out simple diffusion as the major mechanism for fatty acid transport and implicating carrier‐mediated, facilitated transport as the major mechanism. Data from most competitive inhibition experiments were too scattered to determine the number of transporter systems present. Cholesterol uptake also exhibited saturation kinetics and hence other sterols, which can satisfy this nutritional requirement, may also be transported by a carrier‐mediated mechanism. the uptake of the essential fatty acid oleate was faster than those observed for the saturated acids and could not be explained by only one transport mechanism. Therefore, fatty acid transport also occurs via other kinetically significant routes.