Abstract
In order to establish tissue lipid status in animal on feeding of various dietary fat and oils, each group of rats was fed a semisynthetic diet containing 10%(w/w) mackerel oil (MO), eel oil (EO), soybean oil (SO), rapeseed oil (RO) or beef tallow (BT) for 1, 2 and 4 weeks, After each feeding period, levels of cholesterol, triglyceride and phospholipid were measured in serum. Fatty acid ${\leftarrow}$ composition was also investigated in serum and tissue lipids. Levels of total serum cholesterol were lower but HDL-cholesterol were higher in fish oil groups, which resulted in significantly higher ratio of HDL to total cholesterol in the fish oil groups. Fish oil groups, in general, also had lower levels of serum triglyceride and phospholipid than other groups, but S0 group maintained as low phospholipid levrl as fish oil groups. Fatty acid composition of dietary fat was reflected in all the tissues investigated but with varying degrees. Very long chain fatty acids, specific components exclusively found in fish oils were most well reflected in liver and relatively well in serum, whereas linoleic acid and erucic acid of SO and RO in the diet were better shown up in heart and adipose tissue. It attracted a particular attention that major proportions of long chain monoenoic acids $(C_{22:1})$ occurring both in MO and RO were detected separately in liver and heart plus adipose tissue, the result of which strongly indicates that there is a significant difference in metabolism between isomers $(C_{22:1}\;w\;11\;and\;C_{22:1}\;w\;9,\;respectively)$. It is suggested from this study that differences in lipid status as well as in the levels of serum lipids result from uniqueness in metabolism of each different fatty acid and give rise to distinguishable change in serum lipoprotein pattern, followed by diet with different fat sources.