Synthesis of non-hydroxy-galactosylceramides and galactosyldiglycerides by hydroxy-ceramide galactosyltransferase

Galactosylceramide (GalCer) is the major glycolipid in brain. In order to characterize the activity of brain UDPgalactose: ceramide galactosyltransferase (CGalT), it has been stably expressed in CGalT-negative Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. After fractionation of transfected cells, CHO-CGT, on sucrose gradients, the activity resides at the density of endoplasmic reticulum and not of Golgi. A lipid chromatogram from CHO-CGT cells revealed two new iodine-staining spots identified as GalCer, since they comigrate with GalCer standards, can be metabolically labelled with [³H]galactose, are recognized by anti-GalCer antibodies, and are resistant to alkaline hydrolysis. A third [³H]galactose lipid was identified as galactosyldiglyceride. In the homogenate CGalT displays a 25-fold preference for hydroxy fatty acid-containing ceramides. Remarkably, endogenous GalCer of transfected cells contains exclusively non-hydroxy fatty acids: fast atom bombardment and collision-induced dissociation mass spectrometric analysis revealed mainly C_16:0 in the lower GalCer band on TLC and mainly C_22:0 and C_24:0 in the upper band. Our results suggest that CGalT galactosylates both hydroxy- and non-hydroxy fatty acid-containing ceramides and diglycerides, depending on their local availability. Thus, CGalT alone may be responsible for the synthesis of hydroxy- and non-hydroxy-GalCer, and galactosyldiglyceride in myelin.