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A triglyceride (from tri-and glyceride; also TG, triacylglycerol, TAG, or triacylglyceride) is an ester derived from glycerol and three fatty acids. [1] Triglycerides are the main constituents of body fat in humans and other vertebrates as well as vegetable fat . [ 2 ]
[21] [22] They are made of a hydrocarbon chain that terminates with a carboxylic acid group; this arrangement confers the molecule with a polar, hydrophilic end, and a nonpolar, hydrophobic end that is insoluble in water. The fatty acid structure is one of the most fundamental categories of biological lipids and is commonly used as a building ...
Many types of neutral fats are possible both because of the number and variety of fatty acids that could form part of it and because of the different bonding locations for the fatty acids. An example is a monoglyceride , which has one fatty acid combined with glycerol, a diglyceride , which has two fatty acids combined with glycerol, or a ...
The molecule of a triglyceride can be described as resulting from a condensation reaction (specifically, esterification) between each of glycerol's –OH groups and the HO– part of the carboxyl group HO(O=)C− of each fatty acid, forming an ester bridge −O−(O=)C− with elimination of a water molecule H 2 O.
Almost all natural fatty acids, therefore, have even numbers of carbon atoms. When synthesis is complete the free fatty acids are nearly always combined with glycerol (three fatty acids to one glycerol molecule) to form triglycerides, the main storage form of fatty acids, and thus
Glycerol Triacetin, the simplest possible fat (triglyceride) after triformin. Glycerides, also known as acylglycerols, are esters formed from glycerol and fatty acids, and are generally very hydrophobic. [1] Glycerol has three hydroxyl functional groups, which can be esterified with one, two, or three fatty acids to form mono-, di-, and ...
Triacylglycerol synthesis, on the other hand, occurs in the endoplasmic reticulum membrane of cells by bonding three fatty acid molecules to a glycerol molecule. Both processes take place mainly in liver and adipose tissue. Nevertheless, it also occurs to some extent in other tissues such as the gut and kidney.
In fatty acids the carbon atom of the methyl group at the end of the hydrocarbon chain is called the omega carbon because omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. Omega-3 fatty acids have a double bond three carbons away from the methyl carbon, whereas omega-6 fatty acids have a double bond six carbons away from the methyl carbon.