Figure 3. Changes in the lipid spectra in response to dietary LC n-3 PUFA in selected tissues of mice in the ‘prevention study’.

Mice were fed for 9 weeks the cHF (black triangles), cHF+ω3TG (red circles), or cHF+ω3PL (blue circles) diet, while the last two diets were supplemented with 30 g DHA/EPA per kg. In total, 59, 71 and 61 lipid species were quantified in the liver, epididymal WAT and skeletal muscle, respectively, using time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) analysis (see also Table S8, S9, S10). Means±SEM of 3–6 TOF-SIMS spectra from 3 animals per each group were used for orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (oPLS-DA). Score plots of the liver (A), WAT (B) and skeletal muscle (C) and corresponding variable important to projection (VIP) plots for the first latent variable (D, E, F), respectively. Only variables with VIP scores greater than 1 (denoted by a dashed horizontal line; D-F) and narrow confidence intervals were used for further evaluations, and only those discriminating between cHF+ω3TG and cHF+ω3PL diets (gray bars, D-F) were plotted (G; cHF diet, black bars; cHF+ω3TG diet, red bars; cHF+ω3PL diet; blue bars). See also Fig. S3 for additional lipid species identified. DAG, diacylglycerol. *Significantly different from cHF (all analyses by ANOVA).