Abstract
The synthesis of olefinic fatty acids, whether mono-, di-, or polyunsaturated, begins in all eukaryotic cells with the aerobic desaturation of stearate to oleate and more rarely with the conversion of palmitate to palmitoleate. Andreasen and Stier, the first investigators to implicate molecular oxygen in this 9,10 hydrogen abstraction process observed in 1952 that oleate becomes an essential nutrient for yeast growing under strictly anaerobic conditions (1). The evidence available today points to a similar obligatory role of oxygen for all subsequent desaturation steps. The detailed reaction mechanisms responsible for the very earliest events in the desaturation chain may therefore be of some relevance to the steps that follow.
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© 1989 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Bloch, K. (1989). Early Studies on the Biosynthesis of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids. In: Galli, C., Simopoulos, A.P. (eds) Dietary ω3 and ω6 Fatty Acids. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2043-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2043-3_1
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