Discovery of essential fatty acids Arthur A. Spector and Hee-Yong Kim Laboratory of Molecular Signaling, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892 Corresponding author: Arthur A. Spector, M.D. LMS, NIAAA, NIH 5625 Fishers Lane, 3N07 Downloaded from Bethesda, MD 20892-9410 Phone: 301-496-4452 www.jlr.org Fax: 301-594-0035 Email:
[email protected] by guest, on May 14, 2017 Running title: Essential fatty acids Abbreviations: DHA, docosahexaenoic acid; EPA, eicosapentaenoic acid; PG, prostaglandin; TX, thromboxane 1 Abstract Dietary fat was recognized as a good source of energy and fat-soluble vitamins by the first part of the 20th Century, but fatty acids were not considered to be essential nutrients because they could be synthesized from dietary carbohydrate. This well established view was challenged in 1929 by George Burr who reported that dietary fatty acid was required to prevent a deficiency disease that occurred in rats fed a fat-free diet. He concluded that fatty acids were essential nutrients, and he showed that linoleic acid prevented the disease and is an essential fatty acid. Burr surmised that other unsaturated fatty acids were essential and subsequently demonstrated that linoleic acid was converted to arachidonic acid and that linolenic acid, the omega-3 fatty acid analog of linoleic acid, also is an essential fatty acid. The discovery of essential fatty acids was a paradigm-changing finding, Downloaded from and it is now considered to be one of the landmark discoveries in lipid research. Supplementary key words linoleic acid α-linolenic acid arachidonic acid eicosapentaenoic acid www.jlr.org (EPA) docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) prostaglandins fat-soluble vitamins by guest, on May 14, 2017 In this era of genomics, proteomics and lipidomics, it is sobering to remember that a major question in biochemistry 100 years ago was whether fat is an essential dietary component.