Analysis of initial melanogenesis including tyrosinase transfer and melanosome differentiation through interrupted melanization by glutathione.

Because glycosylation-dependent melanization inhibition induced in cultured B-16 melanoma cells by glucosamine is reversible, producing synchronized initiation of melanogenesis after its removal, we have analyzed the possible dynamics of initial melanogenesis through their interruption by glutathione. The addition of glutathione at 0.2% concentration to the theophylline-stimulated recovery process completely interrupts the initiation of melanization for at least 72 h. At the electron microscopic level, theophylline-treated cells have many vacuolar melanosomes with distinct pigmentation which contain some vesicles (64% of total premelanosomes) or amorphous, filamentous, or granular materials within the interior which are suggestive of pheomelanotic melanosomes. The addition of glutathione induces a complete absence of melanization in the premelanosomes, within which a filamentous interior with periodicity is generally re-formed with almost complete disappearance of internal vesicles, providing dramatic changes to the size and shape characteristic of eumelanotic melanosome. Electron microscopic dopa reaction of glutathione-treated cells shows a predominant localization of tyrosinase activity in the Golgi-associated endoplasmic reticulum-lysosome and coated vesicles, but not in premelanosomes, in contrast to their dispersed distribution in all melanogenic organelles in the theophylline-treated control, suggesting a lack of tyrosinase translocation. Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of tyrosinase in the large granule fraction shows that in analogy with electron microscopic observations, glutathione blocks the reappearance of membrane-bound T3 tyrosinase which occurs in the theophylline-treated control during the recovery process, whereas the dynamics of T1 tyrosinase is almost the same as that of the control. These findings suggest that glutathione provides a new situation of interrupted melanogenesis in which melanization cannot proceed despite complete formation of melanosome matrix structure and a lack of inhibition of cellular metabolisms including protein glycosylation.