Exposure of normal rats for 3-7 months to an ω3-deprived diet and subsequent exposure to an ω3-enriched diet were recently proposed as a model to study the metabolic consequences of alteration in the dietary supply of ω3 PUFA and their time course. The same animal model was used in the present study, which aimed at characterizing the pattern of saturated and monodesaturated fatty acids in the phospholipids of the duodenum, jejunum, caecum and colon. With one exception (C18:0), the weight content of these fatty acids was lower in the proximal than distal intestinal segments, a situation possibly accounted for by the generation of short-chain fatty acids by the colonic flora and the resulting synthesis of longer fatty acids n colonocytes. The relative weight content of the 8 fatty acids under consideration (C14:0, C16:0, C16:1ω7, C18:0, C18:1ω9, C20:0, C22:0 and C24:0) was higher in the phospholipids of ω3-deprived rats, as compared to control animals. Exposure of either the control animals or ω3-deprived rats for 2-4 weeks to diets containing twice more lipids than the control or ω3-deprived diet given theretofore further increased, as a rule, the relative content of phospholipids in the saturated or monodesaturated fatty acids, such an increase being much more pronounced in the proximal segments of the intestinal tract than in the distal ones. A significant inverse correlation between the phospholipid content in C22:6ω3 and saturated and monodesaturated fatty acids was only observed in the caecum and colon.

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