Reduced glutathione disrupts the intracellular trafficking of tyrosinase and tyrosinase-related protein-1 but not dopachrome tautomerase and Pmel17 to melanosomes, which results in the attenuation of melanization.

We previously reported that treatment of B16 melanotic melanoma cells with reduced glutathione (GSH) converts them to amelanotic cells without any significant down-regulation of tyrosinase activity. To characterize the cellular mechanism(s) involved, we determined the intracellular distribution of melanocyte-specific proteins, especially in melanin synthesis-specific organelles, termed melanosomes by subcellular fractionation followed by Western blotting and confocal laser microscopy (CFLM). In the melanosome-rich large granule fraction and in highly purified melanosome fractions, while GSH-induced amelanotic B16 cells have significantly diminished levels of protein/activity of tyrosinase and tyrosinase-related protein-1 compared with control melanized B16 cells, there was substantially no difference in the distribution and levels of dopachrome tautomerase and the processed isoform of Pmel17 (HMB45) between control melanized and GSH-induced amelanotic B16 cells. Analysis of merged images obtained by CFLM revealed that whereas tyrosinase, Pmel17 and dopachrome tautomerase colocalize with each other in the control melanized B16 cells, tyrosinase does not colocalize with Pmel17 or its processed isoform and with dopachrome tautomerase in GSH-induced amelanotic B16 cells. The sum of these findings suggests that reduced glutathione selectively disrupts the intracellular trafficking of tyrosinase and tyrosinase-related protein-1 but not dopachrome tautomerase and Pmel17 to melanosomes, which results in the attenuation of melanization, probably serving as a putative model for oculocutaneous albinism type 4.