Related Experiment Videos
Selective modulation of membrane sphingomyelin fatty acid turnover by nigericin. A study in the rat reticulocyte
J Le Petit-Thevenin1, O Nobili, A Vérine
1INSERM U.260, Faculté de Médecine, Marseille, France.
Life Sciences
|January 1, 1996
Abstract:
Exposure of rat reticulocytes to Nigericin produced a selective modulation of fatty acid incorporation into sphingomyelin (SM) of the cell membrane, via changes in SM acylation kinetics. At physiological fatty acid concentration, Nigericin accelerated 8-fold SM acylation by decreasing the apparent K(m) for oleate from 14.7 microM to 2.0 microM. The response was diminished in high K(+)-containing media, suggesting an effect of Nigericin as K+ transporter. This constitutes a novel piece of evidence for the important role of ions in SM metabolism.