Figure 3. Fatty acid content of plasma and rod outer segments

The safflower oil (SO, n-6 fatty acid-rich) and flaxseed oil (FO, n-3 fatty acid-rich) diets were fed to wild type, P23H, and S334ter rats from the fifteenth day of gestation. Rats were killed at 35 and 55 days of age. No substantial differences in fatty acid content were related to age so values for 35 and 55 day old rats were combined to generate these data. The mole-percent contribution among the total fatty acids pool is reported for eicosapentaenoic (20:5n-3), docosahexaenoic (22:6n-3), arachidonic (20:4n-6), and docosapentaenoic (22:5n-6), acids. The graphs show mean values with error bars for standard deviation. Plasma: n=4 to 6 with 1 rat in a single litter per n. Rod outer segments: n=6 with four retinas from two rats in a single litter per n. Multivariate analysis of variance with post hoc Newman-Keuls tests determined statistical differences between diets and differences from wild type <0.05.