Biopolis Dresden Imaging Platform

Membrane lipidome of an epithelial cell line.

Sampaio JL, Gerl MJ, Klose C, Ejsing CS, Beug H, Simons K, Shevchenko A

Tissue differentiation is an important process that involves major cellular membrane remodeling. We used Madin-Darby canine kidney cells as a model for epithelium formation and investigated the remodeling of the total cell membrane lipidome during the transition from a nonpolarized morphology to an epithelial morphology and vice versa. To achieve this, we developed a shotgun-based lipidomics workflow that enabled the absolute quantification of mammalian membrane lipidomes with minimal sample processing from low sample amounts. Epithelial morphogenesis was accompanied by a major shift from sphingomyelin to glycosphingolipid, together with an increase in plasmalogen, phosphatidylethanolamine, and cholesterol content, whereas the opposite changes took place during an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Moreover, during polarization, the sphingolipids became longer, more saturated, and more hydroxylated as required to generate an apical membrane domain that serves as a protective barrier for the epithelial sheet.

Fig.1 taken from Sampaio et al, 2011.
  • Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2011 Feb 1;108(5):1903-7
  • 2011
  • Cell Biology
  • 21245337
  • PubMed

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LMF MPI-CBG

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