Arrested wild-type L1 larvae incorporate deuterium from deuterated ethanol into fatty acids.
(panel A) A portion of the GC-MS chromatogram showing the peak of stearic acid methyl ester obtained form starved L1 larvae incubated for 7 days in 1 mM non-deuterated ethanol. (panel B) A similar portion of the GC-MS chromatogram showing deuterated (left) and non-deuterated (right) peaks of stearic acid for L1 larvae incubated for 7 days in deuterated ethanol. Deuterated fatty acids have shorter retention times and elute in a wide peak immediately before non-deuterated fatty acids. Panels D–G show the peak of deuterated stearic acid broken down into four quartiles as shown in panel B. Stearic acid methyl esters containing more deuterium atoms elute before stearic acid methyl esters containing fewer deuterium atoms. (panel D) Stearic acid in quartile I contains 9–10 additional mass units corresponding to 9–10 deuterium atoms. (panel E) Stearic acid in quartile II contains 7–9 additional mass units corresponding to 7–9 deuterium atoms. (panel F) Stearic acid in quartile III contains 5–8 additional mass units corresponding to 5–8 deuterium atoms. (panel G) Stearic acid in quartile IV contains 4–6 additional mass units corresponding to 4–6 deuterium atoms. The non-deuterated peak shows additional mass due to natural abundance of 13C (panel C).
