Determination of long-chain fatty acids in heart and skeletal muscle by capillary gas chromatography Original Research Article

A reliable and sensitive technique is presented to monitor the total content of non-esterified fatty acids (FAs) and the relative fatty acyl composition in biological material, with special reference to cardiac and skeletal muscle. The separation and quantification of FA were accomplished by capillary gas chromatography. Since in muscle tissue, the amount of FA represents approximately 0.2% of the total esterified and non-esterified fatty acid pool, precautions should be taken to avoid hydrolysis and/or transmethylation of esterified fatty acyl moieties during the assay procedure. In particular, attention should be paid to storage of tissue samples, disruption of tissue prior to lipid extraction and contaminants increasing the blank of the assay. The content of FA in human vastus lateralis muscle at rest amounted to 77±14 nmol g−1 wet weight. The content of FA in the cardiac ventricles of normal rats was 338±76 nmol g−1 dry weight. Diabetes induced by streptozotocin caused a significant 4.8-fold increase in the FA content of rat cardiac ventricular tissue.