The bolus intravenous injection of a novel medium-chain triglyceride:fish oil emulsion to normal subjects was recently reported to enrich within 60 min the phospholipid content of leucocytes and platelets in long-chain polyunsaturated ω3 fatty acids. The present study, conducted in second generation ω3-depleted rats, aimed at investigating whether such a procedure may also increase within 60 min the phospholipid content of ω3 fatty acids in cells located outwards the bloodstream, in this case liver cells, and whether this coincides with correction of the perturbation in the liver triglyceride fatty acid content and profile otherwise prevailing in these rats. This first report deals mainly with the fatty acid pattern of plasma lipids in male ω3-depleted rats that were non-injected or injected with either the ω3-rich emulsion or a control medium-chain triglyceride:olive oil emulsion. The results provide information on the fate of the exogenous lipids present in the lipid emulsions and injected intravenously 60 min before sacrifice. Moreover, in the uninjected ω3-depleted rats the comparison between individual plasma and liver measurements indicated positive correlations in the fatty acid profile of phospholipids and triglycerides.

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