THE STRUCTURAL NATURE OF FREE FATTY ACID TRANSPORT IN CIRCULATING PLASMA. Joseph X. Ho¹, Brian Chang¹, Kim Keeling¹, Eugene W. Holowachuk², Ted Peters², Daniel C. Carter¹, ¹NASA, ES76 Laboratory for Structural Biology,Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, USA, ²Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital, Research Institute, Cooperstown, USA

Strutural studies of canine and human serum albumins both complexed with selected long-chain fatty acids reveal the nature of bound ligand. Novel protein/lipid binding motif is found at subdomains IB and IIIB, where the fatty acids are completely internalized within helical domain structures. Details of the complex and chemistry are discussed.