Ed. Kwon et al., BETAINE AND INOSITOL REDUCE MDCK CELL GLYCEROPHOSPHOCHOLINE BY STIMULATING ITS DEGRADATION, American journal of physiology. Cell physiology, 39(1), 1996, pp. 200-207
The amount of glycerophosphocholine (GPC) in renal medullary cells in
vivo and in cultured renal [Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK)] cells va
ries with extracellular NaCl and urea. We previously showed that this
is largely due to modulation of GPC degradation catalyzed by GPC:choli
ne phosphodiesterase (GPC: PDE). GPC also varies inversely with the le
vels of other compatible osmolytes, the accumulation of which is induc
ed by high tonicity. We tested whether GPC:PDE activity and GPC degrad
ation are affected by accumulation of compatible osmolytes other than
GPC. We find that MDCK cell GPC content decreases when the cells take
up betaine and/or inositol from the medium. The effect is considerably
greater for cells in isosmotic or high-NaCl medium than in high-urea
medium. This difference is associated with suppression of betaine and
inositol accumulation with high urea. We then measured GPC:PDE activit
y with a novel chemiluminescent assay. Addition of inositol and/or bet
aine to the medium greatly increases GPC:PDE activity in cells in isos
motic or high-NaCl media, but the increase is much less in high-urea m
edium. The increases in GPC:PDE activity, associated with the presence
of betaine, are accompanied by commensurate increases in absolute rat
es of endogenous GPC degradation by cells in isosmotic or high-NaCl me
dium. We found previously that, in MDCK cells incubated for 2 days in
high-NaCl medium, the rate of GPC synthesis from phosphatidylcholine i
s increased, correlated with an increase in phospholipase activity. Ho
wever, in the present experiments, betaine accumulation has no effect
on phospholipase activity under those conditions and, thus, presumably
does not affect GPC synthesis. Collectively, these data support the c
onclusion that betaine and/or inositol reduces GPC by increasing GPC d
egradation catalyzed by GPC:PDE. This mechanism enables GPC to be reci
procally regulated relative to other compatible osmolytes, thus mainta
ining an appropriate total osmolyte content.