Ethanol ingestion and polyunsaturated fatty acids: effects on the acyl-CoA desaturases

The ingestion of ethanol results in altered compositions of the polyenoic fatty acids in a variety of liver and brain membranes. A possible cause for these alterations in hepatic endoplasmic reticulum membranes has been studied by measuring the delta 9, delta 6, and delta 5 acyl-CoA desaturase activities in hepatic microsomes from chronically or acutely treated rats. Chronically, ethanol decreased all three enzyme activities with the following order of sensitivity: delta 6 (65%), delta 9 (54%), and delta 5 (46%). The short-term study indicated that all three desaturase activities were affected after 1 day of ethanol feeding. NADPH- and NADH-cytochrome c reductase activities were found to be reduced in chronically treated rats, and the NADH-cytochrome c reductase was decreased in the acutely treated. However, these reduced enzyme activities could not account for the decrease in desaturase activities due to the very marked differences between the specific activities of these enzymes compared to the desaturase. Thus, we conclude that changes in membrane polyenoic fatty acid composition can be result of ethanol-induced decreases in the terminal desaturase enzymes.