Biosynthesis of paf-acether. Paf-acether but not leukotriene C4 production is impaired in cultured macrophages.

After adherence for 24 or 48 h mouse peritoneal macrophages, upon a zymosan challenge, synthesized 114 +/- 55 and 82 +/- 31 pmol of paf-acether (paf)/mg of protein respectively, as compared with 513 +/- 195 pmol of paf/mg of protein in 2 h-adherent macrophages (means +/- S.D., n = 10). By contrast, 24 h- and 48 h-adherent macrophages exposed to zymosan produced more leukotriene C4 (2.7 +/- 1.1 and 1.4 +/- 0.2 nmol/mg of protein respectively, n = 5) than did 2 h-adherent macrophages (0.5 +/- 0.2 nmol/mg of protein, n = 5). Paf production was not altered when 2 h- and 24 h-adherent cells were cultured and/or stimulated in the presence of 5 microM-indomethacin, 10 microM-nordihydroguaiaretic acid or 100 microM-BW755C as compared with untreated cells. These results indirectly exclude the regulation of paf production by arachidonic acid metabolites. We investigated the efficiency of the enzymic steps which govern paf synthesis. We showed that the anabolic process was not impaired since (1) the amounts of alkylacylglycerophosphocholine and lyso-paf were similar in 2 h-, 24 h- and 48 h-adherent macrophages; (2) adding synthetic lyso-paf or acetyl-CoA to intact cells did not increase paf production in zymosan-stimulated 24 h- and 48 h-adherent macrophages; (3) the basal level of acetyltransferase was comparable in 2 h-, 24 h- and 48 h-adherent macrophages and in all cases was increased by 2-3 times upon zymosan challenge. We also showed that impaired paf production in 24 h- and 48 h-cultured macrophages was not due to the nature of the stimulus used to induce its synthesis.