T lymphocyte nuclear diacylglycerol is derived from both de novo synthesis and phosphoinositide hydrolysis.

Novel phospholipid metabolism in T lymphocytes and the generation of biologically active lipid second messengers (LSMs) has attracted much attention in recent years. Despite this interest, no reports have attempted to characterise such events in the nuclei of these cells. In order to gain insight into the structural relationships between the lipids diglyceride (DG) and phosphatidic acid (PtdOH) and their structural precursors phosphatidylcholine (PtdCho) and phosphatidylinositides (PtdIns) in the nuclei of CTLL-2 T lymphocytes, an analysis of their molecular species was performed. The results clearly indicated that there were two pools of DG. The major pool consisted primarily of saturated and monunsaturated structures whereas the minor pool consisted of more unsaturated species, most likely derived from PtdIns. Only the latter pool was found to be accessible to endogenous nuclear diacylglycerol kinase (DGK) activity which showed partial inhibition with the recognised DGK inhibitor R59949. Molecular species analysis of the endogenous nuclear PtdOH revealed it to be distinct from that generated by the endogenous DGK, but instead resembled that of PtdCho species. We were unable to detect enzymatic activities which targeted PtdCho (PtdCho-phospholipase C (PtdCho-PLC), PtdCho-phospholipase D (PtdCho-PLD) and sphingomyelin synthase (SMS)) but instead a detectable PtdOH phosphatase (PAP) activity. We propose that, in exponentially growing CTLL-2 cells, synthesis de novo represents one of the routes for the biosynthesis of structural phospholipids which may be the source of biologically active LSMs in the nucleus.