Distribution of fatty acids in lipids of rat brain, brain mitochondria and microsomes

The importance of lipids as structural elements of particulate enzyme systems is being increasingly realized (e.g. The extent to which the lipids themselves partici- pate in the metabolic function of the structures in which they are found and the specificity of the lipids for particular structures and functions are uncertain. The present study represents part of a search for lipids of specific structure in subcellular fractions of different organs. The underlying assumption is that the occurrence of a lipid with a particular structure in the corresponding cell organelle (or fraction thereof) of organs with different total lipid composition may give an indi- cation of the metabolic function of the lipid.