Influence of magnesium on fatty acids and their esters in isolated rat hepatocytes

The aim of the study is to analyse the changes in the profile of fatty acids and their esters in rat hepatocytes that were incubated for 5 hours with different concentrations of MgCl2 (2 and 4mM) in hepatocyte culture medium. The methyl esters of fatty acids were identified with a GC-MS system included in the Hewlett?Packard quadrupolar mass spectrometer, coupled with a Hewlett-Pacard 5890 gas chromatograph with an ionisation potential of 70 eV and recorded on a Vectra 386 computer. We observed differences in the amount of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids among the examined samples. In the control sample, the largest component consisted of the pool of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. Analysing the changes in the profile of ester-bound fatty acids, we found statistically significant differences when 4 mM MgCl2 was presented. The amount of C18:2, C18:1b and C20:4a decreased in comparison with the control sample.