Altered fucolipid patterns in cultured human cancer cells

Abstract

STUDIES in this laboratory¹ have shown that fucolipid metabolism is markedly altered in membranes of cells transformed by oncornaviruses. Transformed cells exhibit a sharp decrease in radioactive fucose incorporation into chromatographically less mobile, presumably more complex, fucolipids with a corresponding rise in radioactivity in more mobile fucolipids. Studies of fucolipid metabolism in normal rat kidney (NRK) cells transformed by a cold-sensitive transformation mutant of murine sarcoma virus (NRK (MSV-1b)) revealed a correlation between the appearance of the transformed phenotype and altered fucolipid synthesis². The fucolipids of SV40 and herpes simplex virus-transformed cell lines have also been examined³; some of the transformed lines were oncogenic while others were not when injected into appropriate animals. The cell lines which were capable of producing tumours had a block in the synthesis of the complex fucolipids comparable with that observed in the oncornavirus-transformed cells. In contrast, the transformed cell lines that did not produce tumours showed only a minor block in the formation of the complex fucolipids.