title: Uptake and metabolism of fluorescent ceramide analogs by rat oligodendrocytes in culture.
abstract: We studied the metabolism of sphingolipids by oligodendrocytes derived from rat spinal cord by providing lipid vesicles with either N-lissamine-rhodaminyl-ceramide (LRh-Cer) or N-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl)-ceramide (NBD-Cer) to the cells cultured in a chemically-defined medium. With both probes the major fluorescent product turned out to be sphingomyelin (SM). Most of LRh-SM was not cell-associated but recovered from the culture medium, probably due to back-exchange to the lipid vesicles. The accumulation of LRh-SM, both in the cells and in the medium, was inhibited in the presence of monensin or brefeldin A, whereas the production of NBD-SM was much less affected by these Golgi perturbing drugs. With LRh-Cer as substrate, LRh-labelled fatty acid (FA), galactosyl- and sulfogalactosyl-ceramides (GalCer and SGalCer) were also formed. NBD-Cer, however, was metabolized to glucosylceramide (GlcCer) and GalCer but not to SGalCer or NBD-FA. These data demonstrate that chemical modifications of ceramide alter its metabolism in oligodendrocytes and that the metabolites of LRh-Cer reflect the glycolipid composition of myelin more closely than those of NBD-Cer.
authors: Department of Biomedical Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Brescia, Italy.
authors: M L
authors: ML
authors: Giudici
authors: J P
authors: JP
authors: Vos
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Marchesini
authors: L M
authors: LM
authors: Van Golde
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Lopes-Cardozo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002518:Ceramides / Q000378:metabolism*; D002855:Chromatography, Thin Layer; D005260:Female; D005453:Fluorescence; D007700:Kinetics; D009836:Oligodendroglia / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar
chemical_list: D002518:Ceramides