Elaeis guineensis: adenosine phosphates and nicotinamides involvement in fatty acid biosynthesis.

Adenosine phosphates (ATP, ADP, AMP) and nicotinamides (NAD, NADH, NADP and NADPH) are nucleotides that are involved in various plant biosynthetic pathways such as photosynthesis, nitrogen uptake, purine metabolism and lipid biosynthesis. In oil palm fruit formation, kernel and mesocarp are separated by a shell and differ mainly by lipid composition. Oil palm mesocarp and kernel tissues were extracted using a modified perchloric acid extraction and separated via HPLC to quantify the accumulation of these seven nucleotides in relation to lipid composition. Principal component analysis on palm mesocarp and kernel samples displayed clustering and indicated that palm mesocarp contained higher ATP and NAD+ than palm kernel. The higher levels of ATP and NADH may be attributable to the higher content of unsaturated and long chain fatty acids in found palm mesocarp.