Hydrolytic degradation of phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylcholine by isolated rat-liver lysosomes

Lysosomal catabolism of radioactively labelled phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine and several potential metabolites of these diacylphospholipids was studied using rat-liver lysosomes which had been isolated from Triton WR-1339-treated animals. Hydrolysis of these lipids seems to be restricted to the soluble lysosomal compartment. The initial intralysosomal degradation is predominantly catalysed by phospholipase A1 (EC 3.1.1.32) followed by lysophospholipase (EC 3.1.1.5). The end products of this pathway are free fatty acids and glycerophosphorylethanolamine or glycerophosphorylcholine. These phosphodiesters are not hydrolysed further in lysosomes, as has been shown previously (Fowler, S. and De Duve, C. (1969) J. Biol. Chem. 144, 471-481). The intermediary lysophospholipids, however, are also hydrolysed by an alternative pathway, i.e. by a lysophospholipase which catalyses the hydrolysis of the glycerophosphate ester bond, followed by a monoacylglycerol lipase and a phosphomonoesterase (EC 3.1.3.2), respectively. Besides these two catabolic routes of intralysosomal hydrolysis of phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylcholine, additional pathways are possible, which seem, however, to be of minor importance, at least in the substrate concentration ranges employed in these studies. These additional reactions include attack by a phospholipase A2 (EC 3.1.1.4) and--as discovered recently (Matsuzawa, Y. and Hostetler, K.Y. (1980) J. Biol. Chem. 255, 646-652)--by a phospholipase C (EC 3.1.4.3). Cations such as Mg2+, Ca2+, K+ and Na+ inhibit preferentially deacylation reactions.