Ceramide and sphingosine in pulmonary infections

Acid sphingomyelinase and ceramide have previously been shown to play a central role in infections with Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhimurium, Escherichia coli, and Mycobacterium avium. Recent studies have extended the role of sphingolipids in bacterial infections and have demonstrated that ceramide and sphingosine are central to the defense of lungs against bacterial pathogens. Ceramide accumulates in the airway epithelium of cystic fibrosis and ceramide synthase 2 (CerS2)-deficient mice, which respond to the lack of very long chain (C22-C24-) ceramides with a profound compensatory increase of long chain (mainly C16-) ceramides. In contrast, sphingosine is present in healthy airways and is almost completely absent from diseased or deficient epithelial cells. Both sphingolipids are crucially involved in the high susceptibility to infection of cystic fibrosis and CerS2-deficient mice, as indicated by findings showing that the normalization of ceramide and sphingosine levels rescue these mice from acute infection with P. aeruginosa.