BACKGROUND Alcohol consumption is a major cause of fatty liver, and dietary saturated fats have been shown to protect against alcoholic fatty liver. This study investigated the mechanisms of how dietary saturated fat may modulate alcohol-induced hepatic lipid dyshomeostasis. METHODS Male Sprague Dawley rats were pair-fed with 3 isocaloric liquid diets, control, alcohol, and medium chain trigl...

Sinorhizobium meliloti, a legume symbiont, and Brucella abortus, a phylogenetically related mammalian pathogen, both require the bacterial-encoded BacA protein to establish chronic intracellular infections in their respective hosts. We found that the bacterial BacA proteins share sequence similarity with a family of eukaryotic peroxisomal-membrane proteins, including the human adrenoleukodystro...

Wegner, G. H. (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and E. M. Foster. Incorporation of isobutyrate and valerate into cellular plasmalogen by Bacteroides succinogenes. J. Bacteriol. 85:53-61. 1963.-Bacteroides succinogenes was found to require both a branched-chain volatile fatty acid (e.g., isobutyric) and a straight-chain acid (e.g., valeric) for growth. The organism used the acids as precursors ...

Mammalian cells acquire cellular cholesterol by de novo synthesis as well as by uptake of low density lipoprotein (LDL). Peroxisomes contain enzymes involved in the synthesis of cholesterol, and peroxisome-deficient (PD) patients have been shown to have hypocholesterolemia and abnormal LDL. We therefore decided to study whether cholesterol synthesis and cellular uptake of LDL are impaired in cu...

The proton-pumping H+-ATPase, Pma1p, is an abundant and very long lived polytopic protein of the yeast plasma membrane. Pma1p constitutes a major cargo of the secretory pathway and thus serves as a model to study plasma membrane biogenesis. Pma1p associates with detergent-resistant membrane domains (lipid "rafts") already in the ER, and a lack of raft association correlates with mistargeting of...

A low lipid, high starch containing tissue, namely cotyledons of germinating pea seedlings was examined for its capacity to synthesize fatty acid. Intact tissue slices readily incorporate acetate-(14)C into fatty acids from C(16) to C(24). Although crude homogenates synthesize primarily 16:0 and 18:0 from malonyl CoA, subsequent fractionation into a 10,000g pellet, a 10(5)g pellet and supernata...

Fatty acids are synthesized de novo from acetyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA through a series of reactions mediated by acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) and fatty acid synthase (FAS). In rodents, the principal fatty acid produced by FAS is palmitic acid (16:0). Sterol regulatory element-binding proteins (SREBPs) enhance the transcription of many genes responsible for fatty acid synthesis. In transgenic mice ...

Changes in diet during the past century have caused a marked increase in consumption of saturated fatty acids and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) with a concomitant decrease in the intake of n-3 PUFAs. Increased fish consumption has been shown to be the only realistic way to increase dietary quantities of beneficial long-chain n-3 PUFAs such as eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic ...

In the present study membrane fatty acids were analyzed to find a link between the biosynthesis inhibition of very-long-chain fatty acids and the phytotoxic effects of herbicidal chloroacetamides. Accordingly, we have isolated membranes of cucumber seedlings (Cucumis sativus) by two-phase partitioning and analyzed their fatty acid content. Saturated VLCFAs ranging from C20 to C26 were found in ...