Effect of Albumin or Serum on the Uptake and Degradation of Pyrene Cerebroside Sulfate by Lymphoblasts and Skin Fibroblasts

Summary

The intense fluorescence emission of the 12(1-pyrene) dodecanoyl cerebroside sulfate (P₁₂-CS) was utilized for investigating the effect of serum albumin on uptake of sulfatide by cultured cells and its intracellular metabolism. When albumin-P₁₂-CS complexes were added to the growth medium of lymphoblastoid or skin fibroblasts cell lines, rates of uptake decreased with increasing mole ratios of albumin to P₁₂-CS. When P₁₂-CS was complexed to an equimolar quantity of bovine serum albumin and this was added to normal and MLD cells, after 48 hours the normal cells had a five fold excess of degradation products, relative to those derived from the MLD patient. This suggests that in presence of low concentrations of albumin, uptake of CS by cultured cells and its subsequent metabolic degradation might be considerably shortened.