This article is available online at http://www.jlr.org ( c9,. Many CLA isomers have been described; however, the major isomer occurring in meat and dairy products is c9,t11 -CLA ( 2-4 ). It is produced in the rumen through microbial biohydrogenation of linoleic acid and in tissues by delta-9 desaturation of rumen-derived transvaccenic acid ( t11 -FA 18:1) ( 5 ). In contrast, t9,t11 -CLA is the predominant isomer found in dietary oils, as it is generated during partial hydrogenation of vegetable oils and oil refi ning ( 6, 7 ). Several data from in vitro and animal studies show that dietary CLAs are benefi cial and infl uence the progression of several diseases, including cardiovascular and infl ammatory diseases and cancer ( 8-11 ).We have previously reported that two isomers in particular, c9,t11 -and t9,t11 -CLA, have specifi c and even contrasting effects on gene expression associated with lipid metabolism of human macrophages ( 12, 13 ). Concerning CLA metabolism, it has been shown that c9,t11 -CLA incorporates into phospholipids of leukemia cells and can be found in plasma and cellular lipids of healthy men supplemented with a diet enriched with this CLA isomer ( 14, 15 ). However, so far the effects of c9,t11 -CLA on individual phospholipid classes, phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylserine (PS), and its cellular distribution are not precisely described, and data on the metabolism of the t9,t11 -CLA isomer are completely unavailable.Therefore we investigated c9,t11 -CLA and t9,t11 -CLA metabolism by quantitative lipid mass spectrometry. As a cellular model, human primary monocyte-derived macrophages were chosen because these cells are highly active with respect to fatty acid and phospholipid metabolism ( 16 ). Moreover macrophages, which are multifunctional cells present in all tissues of the human body, play important roles in several metabolic diseases, including atheroAbstract Conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) are dietary fatty acids. Whereas cis-9,trans-11-(c9,t11)-CLA can be found in meat and dairy products, trans-9,trans-11-(t9,t11) -CLA is a constituent of vegetable oils. Previous studies showed that these two isomers activate different nuclear receptors and, thus, expression of genes related to lipid metabolism. Here we show that these CLA isomers are differentially elongated and desaturated in primary monocyte-derived macrophages isolated from healthy volunteers by using gas chromatographymass spectrometry (GC-MS). We further demonstrate that c9,t11 -CLA incorporates in phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) species and activates de novo glycerophospholipid synthesis by quantitative electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS). c9,t11 -CLA leads to strong shifts of the species profi les to PC 18:2/18:2 and PE 18:2/18:2, which are due to de novo synthesis and fatty acid remodeling. In contrast, t9,t11 -CLA is preferentially bound to neutral lipids, including triglycerides and cholesterol esters.Taken together our results show that ...