Fate of Oligosaccharide‐Lipid Intermediates Synthesized by Resting Rat‐Spleen Lymphocytes

Abstract

Using conditions to avoid the utilization of labelled precursors by intracellular glycosyltransferases, experiments are described demonstrating that intact rat-spleen lymphocytes are capable of utilizing exogenous GDP-mannose and UDP-N-acetylglucosamine to synthesize dolichyl mono-phosphate mannose and dolichyl diphosphate oligosaccharides. Kinetic and chase experiments show that dolichyl diphosphate oligosaccharides are either utilized for the transfer of their carbohydrate moieties to protein acceptors or further degraded. Since glycosylation of proteins is limited in resting lymphocytes, the degradation pathway appears as a major event in the fate of the dolichyl diphosphate oligosaccharides synthesized in vitro. These dolichyl diphosphate oligosaccharides are degraded into phospho-oligosaccharides and oligosaccharides which are released in the medium. This enzymatic cleavage of the phosphodiester bond is inhibited by bacitracin. The phospho-oligosaccharides are susceptible to alkaline phosphatase giving neutral oligosaccharides and they are cleaved by endo-N-acetyl-β-d-glucosaminidase H leaving N-acetylglucosamine 1-phosphate and neutral oligosaccharides. These data suggest that splitting of the phosphodiester bond of dolichyl diphosphate oligosaccharides, dephosphorylation and/or endo-N-acetyl-β-d-glucosaminidase hydrolysis of the phosphorylated oligosaccharides could represent the beginning of the catabolic pathway of dolichyl diphosphate oligosaccharides.