Fatty acid positional specificity in phospholipids of L1210 leukemia and normal mouse lymphocytes

The positional distribution of fatty acids in the choline and ethanolamine phosphoglycerides of the L1210 murine leukemia cells was determined and compared to that of normal mouse lymphocytes. The major phospholipids of both cell types had appreciable degrees of positional specificity as evident from the higher percentage of saturated fatty acids in position 1 and of polyunsaturated fatty acids in position 2. The L1210 cells had less arachidonate and more linoleate in position 2 of choline and ethanolamine phosphoglycerides as compared to the normal lymphocytes. However, there were similar proportions of saturated, monoenoic and polyenoic fatty acids in positions 1 and 2 of the phospholipids of the L1210 leukemia cells and the lymphocytes, These data demonstrate that fatty acid positional specificity is retained in the major phospholipids of this rapidly growing tumor.