Effects of reduced and oxidized glutathione on sphingomyelinase activity and contents of sphingomyelin and lipid peroxidation products in murine liver.

Like the phosphatidyl inositol cycle, the sphingomyelin cycle produces a series of the secondary messengers transmitting extracellular signals from the cytoplasmic membrane into the nucleus. Sphingomyelin, ceramide, sphingosine, sphingomyelinase, and ceramidase are the main components of the sphingomyelin cycle. In spite of numerous data on the functional properties of sphingomyelin cycle products, the activation mechanism for the key enzyme of the sphingomyelin cycle, sphingomyelinase (SMase), is not well understood. We have discovered effects of both reduced (GSH) and oxidized (GSSG) glutathione on the activity of neutral SMase in animals. GSH administration (18 mg per mouse) inhibits this enzymatic activity in liver for 2 h and increases the sphingomyelin level exactly as occurs in cell culture. The levels of diene conjugates and ketodienes decrease simultaneously during the experiment, thus indicating the ability of GSH to suppress oxidative processes in the cell. GSSG administration (18 mg per mouse) has no effect on the SMase activity during the first 15 min, but increases it twofold after 1 h. A short-term decrease in this activity after 30 min may depend on the conversion of excess GSSG into its reduced form by glutathione reductase. Unlike GSH, GSSG has no effect on the level of ketodienes after 1 h, but it induces the accumulation of diene conjugates. A strong correlation exists between the changes in SMase activity and in the level of oxidation products caused by either GSH or GSSG. These data indicate a relationship between SMase activity and the level of peroxidation products and possibly a relation between two signaling systems: the sphingomyelin cycle and the oxidative system.