Effects of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids on tissue monounsaturate and saturate proportions in two insect species

Abstract

1.1. In Galleria increased dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids resulted in increased polyunsaturated fatty acid proportions in tissue phospholipids associated with reductions in proportions of oleic and palmitoleic acids while the proportions of saturated fatty acids remained unchanged.2.2. Such changes were not observed in triacylglycerol fatty acid proportions.3.3. In adult Drosophila, phospholipid and triacylglycerol proportions of oleic and palmitoleic acids changed when larval rearing was shifted from a yeast medium (which would contain linoleic acid) to a holidic, fatty acid-free medium for 1 and 5 sequential generations.4.4. Linoleic acid decreased, and associated changes in other fatty acid proportions were unusual because while oleic acid proportions increased, palmitoleic acid proportions decreased, leaving the proportions of unsaturated fatty acids unchanged overall.5.5. These findings are compared to the pattern commonly observed in several insect groups.