Mass spectrometric analysis reveals an increase in plasma membrane polyunsaturated phospholipid species upon cellular cholesterol loading.

Here we used electrospray ionization mass spectrometry for quantitative determination of lipid molecular species in human fibroblasts and their plasma membrane incorporated into enveloped viruses. Both influenza virus selecting ordered domains and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) depleted of such domains [Scheiffele, P., et al. (1999) J. Biol. Chem. 274, 2038-2044] were analyzed. The major difference between influenza and VSV was found to be a marked enrichment of glycosphingolipids in the former. The effect of chronic cholesterol loading on viral lipid composition was studied in Niemann-Pick type C (NPC) fibroblasts. Both NPC-derived influenza and VSV virions contained increased amounts of cholesterol. Furthermore, polyunsaturated phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, and phosphatidylserine were enriched in NPC-derived virions at the expense of the monounsaturated ones. When normal fibroblasts were acutely loaded with cholesterol using cyclodextrin complexes, an adjustment toward increasingly unsaturated phospholipid species was observed, most clearly for phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin. Our results provide evidence that (1) glycosphingolipids are enriched in domains through which influenza virus buds, (2) chronic cholesterol accumulation increases the cholesterol content of both glycosphingolipid-enriched and intervening plasma membrane domains, and (3) an increase in membrane cholesterol content is accompanied by an increased level of polyunsaturated species of the major membrane phospholipids. We suggest that remodeling of phospholipids toward higher unsaturation may serve as both an acute and a long-term adaptive mechanism in human cellular membranes against cholesterol excess.