RESUMO
The polyunsaturated wax esters which occur in an oil droplet in Calanus helgolandicus apparently serve as a short term reserve metabolic fuel. The lipids of the copepods were labeled by feeding them (14)C-labeled diatoms, Skeletonema costatum, after which starvation and turnover experiments were carried out. During starvation both wax esters and triglycerides are largely depleted within 72 hr, whereas cholesterol and phospholipid decreased at much slower rates.
Assuntos
Crustáceos/metabolismo , Metabolismo dos Lipídeos , Ceras/metabolismo , Animais , Isótopos de Carbono , Colesterol/metabolismo , Ésteres/metabolismo , Eucariotos , Fosfolipídeos/metabolismo , Plâncton , Inanição , Fatores de Tempo , Triglicerídeos/metabolismoRESUMO
Two pelagic copepods, Calanus helgolandicus and Gaussia princeps, contained wax esters with 28 to 44 carbon atoms as major lipid constituents. In laboratory cultures of the former species, changes in nutrition (amount or species of diatoms fed) affected both the amount of total lipid and the composition of the wax esters. Thus, the wax esters serve as a reserve energy store in this organism.
