Problems derived from obesity and overweight have recently promoted the development of fat substitutes and other low-calorie foods. On the one hand, fats with short- and medium-chain fatty acids are a source of quick energy, easily hydrolyzable and hardly stored as fat. Furthermore, 1,3-diacylglycerols are not hydrolyzed to 2-monoacylglycerols in the gastrointestinal tract, reducing the formati...

Ca2+-tolerant myocytes were isolated with endogenous triacylglycerol (TAG) stores prelabelled with [3H]palmitate and subsequently incubated for a 1h chase period with [14C]palmitate, 2% albumin and 5mM glucose. Measurements were then made of [14C]palmitate conversion into TAG and phospholipids, of loss of [3H]TAG, of glycerol release and of change in the total TAG content. Rates of de novo synt...

Intestinal absorption of dietary fat is a complex process mediated by enterocytes leading to lipid assembly and secretion of circulating lipoproteins as chylomicrons, vLDL and intestinal HDL (iHDL). Understanding lipid digestion is of importance knowing the correlation between excessive fat absorption and atherosclerosis. By using time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS), we il...

There is an increasing interest in the production of monoglycerides (MAG) and diglycerides (DAG) rich in omega-3, such as DHA (C22:6n-3) and EPA (C20:5n-3). MAG offer several health benefits over the most commercialized ethyl esters. These partial acylglycerols can be produced by enzymatic glycerolysis reaction, often carried out in organic solvents. This work reports a lipase-catalyzed glycero...

Different plant products have been subjected to detailed investigations due to their increasing importance for improving human health. Plants are sources of many groups of natural products, of which large number of new compounds has already displayed their high impact in human medicine. This review deals with the natural products which may be found dissolved in lipid phase (phytosterols, vitami...

Both 1,2-diacyl- and 1-O-alkyl-2-acylglycerols are formed during stimulation of human neutrophils (PMN), and both can prime respiratory burst responses for stimulation by the chemotactic peptide, N-formyl-Met-Leu-Phe (fMLP); however, mechanisms of priming are unknown. Arachidonic acid (AA) release through phospholipase A2 activation and metabolism by 5-lipoxygenase are important activities of P...

In order to probe the active-site structure of human milk bile-salt-activated lipase (BAL), the kinetics of the BAL-catalysed reaction were studied using monoesters as substrates. Among the fatty acyl chains, ranging from C8 to C16 of monoacylglycerols in a single equimolar assay mixture, there was a consistent trend of increased reactivity with decreased fatty-acyl-chain length for both the ba...

Bacterial glycerol ether lipids (alkylglycerols) have received increasing attention during the last decades, notably due to their potential role in cell resistance or adaptation to adverse environmental conditions. Major uncertainties remain, however, regarding the origin, biosynthesis, and modes of formation of these uncommon bacterial lipids. We report here the preponderance of monoalkyl- and...

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) reduces adiposity in vivo. However, mechanisms mediating these changes are unclear. Therefore, we treated cultures of human adipocytes with trans-10, cis-12 (10,12) CLA, cis-9, trans-11 (9,11) CLA or other trans fatty acids (FA), and measured indices of lipid metabolism. The lipid-lowering effects of 10,12 CLA were unique, as other trans FA did not reduce TG conte...