The use of 13-methyltetradecanoic acid as an indicator of adipose tissue turnover

We show in this paper that 13-methyltetradecanoic acid (13-MTD) can be used as a structually labeled marker for investigating the mobility of fatty acyl chains in adipose tissue in the rat. The presence of an omega-1 methyl group allows easy quantitation by gas liquid chromatography (GLC) and permits an assessment to be made of any oxidation and chain elongation reactions with reincorporation of the label into the adipose tissue, since the iso-acyl chain is well resolved from odd or even-numbered homologous fatty acids with straight chains. The kinetics of uptake and loss of the structural label were different for adipose tissue taken from the various sites which were sampled, namely post abdominal, mesenteric, perirenal, pericardiac and subcutaneous adipose tissue as well as the epidydimal fat pads. We also report preliminary results in man which confirm that the method is applicable to human clinical studies and that 13-MTD kinetics differ for adipose tissue taken from the 3 different subcutaneous sites--waist, arm and thigh.