Brain phospholipid metabolism determination

Figure 11.5. ) One of the major components in brain matter are lipids, and changes in phospholipid concentrations in tissue are associated with Farber disease, Alzheimer disease, and Gaucher disease. Therefore, by profiling the rat brain lipid metabolism using IM-MS, early detection could be beneficial for prevention or intervention of these diseases. The focus of this work was measuring lipids in rat brain tissue using a low-pressure matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI)-low pressure IM-MS and determining noncovalent complexes between lipids in the tissue and chlorisondamine, a nicotinic antagonist.

A major fate of PA is conversion to DG that can be metabolized to PC, PE, and TG (Fig. 1). Alternatively, PA can react with CTP to form CDP-DG that is utilized for biosynthesis of the inositol phospholipids as well as phosphatidylglycerol (PG) and diphosphatidylglycerol (DPG) (Fig. 1). Inositol is a cyclohexane derivative in which all six carbons contain hydroxyl groups. The most common inositol isoform is myo-inositol but other less abundant inositols with different structures also occur. The first report of an inositol-containing lipid was in 1930 in Mycobacteria which is ironic since inositol lipids are rarely found in bacteria. Brain is the richest source of inositol-containing lipids, as first discovered by Folch and Wooley in 1942. In 1949, Folch described a PI phosphate (PI-P) that was later found to include PI and PI bisphosphate (PI-P2). The chemical structures of PI, PI-P, and PI-P2 were determined by Ballou and co-workers between 1959 and 1961. PI (1.7 pmol/g liver) constitutes -10% of the phospholipids in cells and tissues. PI-P and PI-P2 are present at much lower concentrations (1-3% of PI). In 1958, Agranoff and co-workers first reported the incorporation of [ HJinositol into PI. Subsequently, Paulus and Kennedy showed that CTP was the preferred nucleotide donor. 

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