Effects of sphingomyelin and phosphatidylcholine degradation on cyclodextrin-mediated cholesterol efflux in cultured fibroblasts.

The hydrolysis of plasma membrane sphingomyelin is known to dramatically alter cellular cholesterol homeostasis in different ways, whereas the degradation of plasma membrane phosphatidylcholine has much less or no effects on cell cholesterol homeostasis [Pörn, Ares, Slotte, J. Lipid Res. 34 (1993) 1385-1392]. In this study, we used an efficient extracellular cholesterol acceptor (cyclodextrin) and determined the extent of cholesterol efflux from cultured fibroblasts in which plasma membrane sphingomyelin or phosphatidylcholine was degraded. Treatment of cells with sphingomyelinase reduced the cell sphingomyelin content by about 76% (about 13 nmol SM degraded), and dramatically increased the desorption of [3H]cholesterol from the plasma membrane to 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin. The corresponding hydrolysis of cell surface phosphatidylcholine (about 12% reduction of the cellular phosphatidylcholine content, corresponding to about 12 nmol degraded PC) had almost no effect on cell [3H]cholesterol efflux. The stimulatory effect of sphingomyelin degradation on cell [3H]cholesterol efflux was reversible, since rates of [3H]cholesterol efflux dropped back to control levels when cells (in this case baby hamster kidney cells) were allowed to restore their sphingomyelin content by re-synthesis in the absence of sphingomyelinase. The findings of this study clearly demonstrate that plasma membrane sphingomyelin markedly affected the rate of cholesterol transfer between cells and an extracellular acceptor (i.e., cyclodextrin), whereas the effect of phosphatidylcholine on cholesterol efflux was much smaller.