Abstract
Summary
Fatty acid oxidation by blood cells in vitro has been studied by incubation of 10-times diluted blood of the rat with pal-mitate-1-C14, followed by determination of C14O2 evolved. A modification of the method was introduced for separation of white cells, platelets and red cells by differential centrifu-gation, in order to increase the accuracy of the determinations. The effect of diluted plasma on rate of palmitate-1-C14 oxidation and action of plasma albumin were taken into consideration. Experimental data indicate that a major portion of the total palmi-tate-l-C14 oxidation in vitro per unit volume of blood is attributable to white cells and platelets, whereas palmitate-1-C14 oxidation by red cells is very limited and probably occurs only in the youngest circulating cells. On a per cell basis, white cells oxidize pal-mi tate-l-C14 at a rate which is about 60 times greater than that of platelets and about 800 times greater than that of red cells with reticulocytes.
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