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Saturated Fatty Acids Induce Ceramide-associated Macrophage Cell Death
Published on: October 31, 2017
Enhanced ceramide-induced apoptosis in ceramide kinase overexpressing cells
Christine Graf1, Philipp Rovina, Loïc Tauzin
1Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Brunnerstrasse 59, A-1235 Vienna, Austria.
Abstract:
We evaluated how increased levels of ceramide kinase (CerK) would impact the growth of COS-1 fibroblasts and RBL-2H3 basophils. The low CerK activity in these cells was strongly up-regulated upon recombinant expression of CerK. CerK-overexpressing COS-1 cells depended on higher concentrations of serum for their growth and displayed many filipodia. The two CerK-overexpressing cell lines were more sensitive to C2-ceramide-mediated apoptosis, and this correlated with the production of C2-ceramide-1-phosphate by CerK. This study indicates that ceramide kinase may participate in the control of cell growth, and establishes a novel assay that will be valuable for testing ceramide kinase inhibitors.
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