Modification of the fatty acid composition of L1210 murine leukemia cells

We have compared the effect of diets containing 16% sunflower seed oil (polyunsaturated fat-rich) or 16% coconut oil (saturated fat-rich) fed for 3–7 weeks on the composition of L1210 murine leukemia cells which were transplanted into the peritoneal cavity during the final week of feeding. The L1210 phospholipids of mice fed the sunflower oil diet contained 43% polyenoic fatty acids and an average of 1.5 double bonds per fatty acid molecule as compared to only 25% polyenoic fatty acids and 1.2 double bonds in the coconut oil group. In contrast, the cells from the sunflower oil group contained only 13% monoenoic fatty acids as compared to 33% in those from the coconut oil group. When compared to phospholipids of tumors from mice who were fed a commercial mouse chow, cells grown on sunflower oil had an 18% increase in polyenoic fatty acids and those grown on coconut oil a 31% decrease. The greatest changes occurred in the proportion of oleate and linoleate. There was only a small difference in the percentage of saturated fatty acids and in the mean fatty acid chain length among the tumor cells from animals on the experimental diets. The changes in the fatty acid composition of the L1210 cell neutral lipids and the lipids of the ascites fluid were similar to those observed in the phospholipids. A majority of the changes had occurred after 5 weeks of feeding the special diet. These results indicated that the fatty acid saturation of tumor cell phospholipids can be altered appreciably. The changes in fatty acid composition were not associated with any change in the sterol/phospholipid ratio of the cells. Therefore, our results suggest that it may be possible to alter the physical properties and function of a tumor cell membrane by dietary modification of its phospholipid composition.