Glyceryl ether synthesis from long chain alcohols in elasmobranch stomach.

1. The isolated stomachs of the dogfish, Squdus acanthias, and the skate, Raja erinacea, were found to incorporate long chain alcohols and acetate, but not long chain fatty acids, into glyceryl ethers. 2. The criterion for evaluation of incorporation of radioactive substrates into glyceryl ethers was the measurement of activity of individual isopropylidene derivatives separated by means of gas-liquid chromatography. 3. A pathway for incorporation of long chain alcohols involving aldehydes and fatty acids as intermediates was ruled out by means of studies which utilized mixtures of cetyl alcohol-lJ4C and cetyl alcohol-1-3H. 4. An unexpected finding was a relatively greater enrichment in tritium as compared with 14C in the process of glyceryl ether synthesis from mixtures of cetyl alcohol-1-3H and cetyl alcohol-l-W .