Identification of small subunits of mammalian serine palmitoyltransferase that confer distinct acyl-CoA substrate specificities.
Serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT) catalyzes the first committed step in sphingolipid biosynthesis. In yeast, SPT is composed of a heterodimer of 2 highly-related subunits, Lcb1p and Lcb2p, and a third subunit, Tsc3p, which increases enzyme activity markedly and is required for growth at elevated temperatures. Higher eukaryotic orthologs of Lcb1p and Lcb2p have been identified, but SPT activity is not highly correlated with coexpression of these subunits and no ortholog of Tsc3p has been identified. Here, we report the discovery of 2 proteins, ssSPTa and ssSPTb, which despite sharing no homology with Tsc3p, each substantially enhance the activity of mammalian SPT expressed in either yeast or mammalian cells and therefore define an evolutionarily conserved family of low molecular weight proteins that confer full enzyme activity. The 2 ssSPT isoforms share a conserved hydrophobic central domain predicted to reside in the membrane, and each interacts with both hLCB1 and hLCB2 as assessed by positive split ubiquitin 2-hybrid analysis. The presence of these small subunits, along with 2 hLCB2 isofoms, suggests that there are 4 distinct human SPT isozymes. When each SPT isozyme was expressed in either yeast or CHO LyB cells lacking endogenous SPT activity, characterization of their in vitro enzymatic activities, and long-chain base (LCB) profiling revealed differences in acyl-CoA preference that offer a potential explanation for the observed diversity of LCB seen in mammalian cells.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA.
Gongshe
G
Han
Sita D
SD
Gupta
Kenneth
K
Gable
Somashekarappa
S
Niranjanakumari
Prasun
P
Moitra
Florian
F
Eichler
Robert H
RH
Brown
Jeffrey M
JM
Harmon
Teresa M
TM
Dunn
D000214:Acyl Coenzyme A / Q000378:metabolism*; D048868:Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D002460:Cell Line; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals; D008565:Membrane Proteins; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011485:Protein Binding; D021122:Protein Subunits; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D051102:Serine C-Palmitoyltransferase / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism*; D013379:Substrate Specificity
D000214:Acyl Coenzyme A; D048868:Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D008565:Membrane Proteins; D021122:Protein Subunits; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; C406284:TSC3 protein, S cerevisiae; C487784:SPTLC1 protein, human; C495089:SPTLC2 protein, human; D051102:Serine C-Palmitoyltransferase; C541445:ssSPTa