Lpcat3-dependent production of arachidonoyl phospholipids is a key determinant of triglyceride secretion

  1. Xin Rong
  2. Bo Wang
  3. Merlow M Dunham
  4. Per Niklas Hedde
  5. Jinny S Wong
  6. Enrico Gratton
  7. Stephen G Young
  8. David A Ford
  9. Peter Tontonoz  Is a corresponding author
  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
  2. Saint Louis University, United States
  3. University of California, Irvine, United States
  4. Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, United States
  5. University of California, Los Angeles, United States

Abstract

The role of specific phospholipids in lipid transport has been difficult to assess due to an inability to selectively manipulate membrane composition in vivo. Here we show that the phospholipid remodeling enzyme lysophosphatidylcholine acyltransferase 3 (Lpcat3) is a critical determinant of triglyceride secretion due to its unique ability to catalyze the incorporation of arachidonate into membranes. Mice lacking Lpcat3 in the intestine fail to thrive during weaning and exhibit enterocyte lipid accumulation and reduced plasma triglycerides. Mice lacking Lpcat3 in the liver show reduced plasma triglycerides, hepatosteatosis, and secrete lipid-poor VLDL lacking arachidonoyl phospholipids. Mechanistic studies indicate that Lpcat3 activity impacts membrane lipid mobility in living cells, suggesting a biophysical basis for the requirement of arachidonoyl phospholipids in lipidating lipoprotein particles. These data identify Lpcat3 as a key factor in lipoprotein production and illustrate how manipulation of membrane composition can be used as a regulatory mechanism to control metabolic pathways.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Xin Rong

    Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. Bo Wang

    Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  3. Merlow M Dunham

    Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Per Niklas Hedde

    Laboratory of Fluorescence Dynamics, Biomedical Engineering Department, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Jinny S Wong

    Electron Microscopy Core, Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, San Francisco, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Enrico Gratton

    Laboratory of Fluorescence Dynamics, Biomedical Engineering Department, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Stephen G Young

    Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States
    Competing interests
    Stephen G Young, Reviewing Editor, eLife.
  8. David A Ford

    Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Peter Tontonoz

    Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States
    For correspondence
    ptontonoz@mednet.ucla.edu
    Competing interests
    Peter Tontonoz, Reviewing editor, eLife.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (99-131 and 2003-166) of the University of California Los Angeles

Copyright

© 2015, Rong et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 4,787
    views
  • 1,372
    downloads
  • 164
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Xin Rong
  2. Bo Wang
  3. Merlow M Dunham
  4. Per Niklas Hedde
  5. Jinny S Wong
  6. Enrico Gratton
  7. Stephen G Young
  8. David A Ford
  9. Peter Tontonoz
(2015)
Lpcat3-dependent production of arachidonoyl phospholipids is a key determinant of triglyceride secretion
eLife 4:e06557.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06557

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06557

Further reading

    1. Cell Biology
    Masroor Ahmad Paddar, Fulong Wang ... Vojo Deretic
    Research Article

    ATG5 is one of the core autophagy proteins with additional functions such as noncanonical membrane atg8ylation, which among a growing number of biological outputs includes control of tuberculosis in animal models. Here, we show that ATG5 associates with retromer’s core components VPS26, VPS29, and VPS35 and modulates retromer function. Knockout of ATG5 blocked trafficking of a key glucose transporter sorted by the retromer, GLUT1, to the plasma membrane. Knockouts of other genes essential for membrane atg8ylation, of which ATG5 is a component, affected GLUT1 sorting, indicating that membrane atg8ylation as a process affects retromer function and endosomal sorting. The contribution of membrane atg8ylation to retromer function in GLUT1 sorting was independent of canonical autophagy. These findings expand the scope of membrane atg8ylation to specific sorting processes in the cell dependent on the retromer and its known interactors.

    1. Cancer Biology
    2. Cell Biology
    Maojin Tian, Le Yang ... Peiqing Zhao
    Research Article

    TIPE (TNFAIP8) has been identified as an oncogene and participates in tumor biology. However, how its role in the metabolism of tumor cells during melanoma development remains unclear. Here, we demonstrated that TIPE promoted glycolysis by interacting with pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) in melanoma. We found that TIPE-induced PKM2 dimerization, thereby facilitating its translocation from the cytoplasm to the nucleus. TIPE-mediated PKM2 dimerization consequently promoted HIF-1α activation and glycolysis, which contributed to melanoma progression and increased its stemness features. Notably, TIPE specifically phosphorylated PKM2 at Ser 37 in an extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)-dependent manner. Consistently, the expression of TIPE was positively correlated with the levels of PKM2 Ser37 phosphorylation and cancer stem cell (CSC) markers in melanoma tissues from clinical samples and tumor bearing mice. In summary, our findings indicate that the TIPE/PKM2/HIF-1α signaling pathway plays a pivotal role in promoting CSC properties by facilitating the glycolysis, which would provide a promising therapeutic target for melanoma intervention.