Effects of dietary sphingomyelin on central nervous system myelination in developing rats

Human milk contains sphingomyelin (SM) as a major component of the phospholipid fraction. Galactosylceramide (cerebroside), a metabolite of sphingolipids, increases along with CNS myelination, and is generally considered a universal marker of myelination in all vertebrates. l-Cycloserine (LCS) is an inhibitor of serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT), a rate-limiting enzyme for sphingolipid biosynthesis that is reported to show increased activity with development of the rat CNS. The present study examined the effects of dietary SM on CNS myelination during development in LCS-treated rats. From 8 d after birth, Wistar rat pups received a daily s.c. injection (100 mg/kg) of LCS. From 17 d after birth, the animals were fed an 810 mg/100g of bovine SM-supplemented diet (SM-LCS group) or a nonsupplemented diet (LCS group). At 28 d after birth, the animals were killed and subjected to biochemical and morphometric analyses. The myelin dry weight, myelin total lipid content, and cerebroside content were significantly lower in the SM-LCS and LCS groups than in a group not treated with LCS (the non-LCS group). However, these levels were significantly higher in the SM-LCS group than in the LCS group. Morphometric analysis of the optic nerve revealed that the axon diameter, nerve fiber diameter, myelin thickness, and g value (used to compare the relative thickness of myelin sheaths around fibers of different diameter) were significantly lower in the LCS group than in the other groups, but were similar in the SM-LCS and non-LCS groups. These findings suggest that dietary SM contributes to CNS myelination in developing rats with experimental inhibition of SPT activity corrected].