Milk triglycerides: the degree of non-random associations of fatty acids

Abstract

SummaryPublished data are available for the fatty-acid compositions and molecular-weight distributions of triglycerides in milk and adipose tissue from the guinea-pig, rat, mouse and rabbit, and in milk from the human, cow, mink and hamster. These data have been used to calculate the extent of non-random associations of fatty acids of different chain lengths in these triglycerides.The results support, in general, the concept of non-correlative acylation, i.e. that during the biosynthesis of these triglycerides, fatty acids already present on the glycerol backbone do not influence the selective acylation of subsequent fatty acids. However, milk triglycerides from these animals show varying degrees of intermolecular specificity which can be explained in terms of positional specificity of fatty acids on the glycerol backbone.