The bolus intravenous injection of a medium-chain triglyceride:fish oil emulsion was recently found to increase within 60 min the cell phospholipid content in long-chain polyunsaturated ω3 fatty acids and, hence, proposed as a potential tool to prevent cardiac arrhythmia in subjects with a decreased dietary intake of such fatty acids. In the present study, ventricular cardiomyocytes from second generation rats depleted in ω3 fatty acids were found to display the same changes in the phospholipid fatty acid pattern as that previously documented in the cardiac muscle and endothelium of such rats, altered 86Rb and 45Ca fluxes with emphasis on a decrease in both K+ inflow and K+ content and an increase in both Ca2+ inflow and content. The alteration of K+ inflow could not be attributed to a decrease in ouabain-sensitive Na+,K+-ATPase activity as measured in cell homogenates. The cationic alterations were corrected, in part at least, by the prior intravenous injection of the medium-chain triglyceride:fish oil emulsion 60 min before sacrifice of the ω3-depleted rats.

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