Very high proportion of disaturated molecular species in rat platelet diacyl-glycerophosphocholine: involvement of CoA-dependent transacylation reactions

The molecular species composition of rat platelet diacyl-glycerophosphocholine (GPC) was investigated by reverse-phase HPLC and by mass spectrometry. The two methods gave the same very high proportion of fully saturated phospholipids, the 16:0-16:0 and 16:0-18:0 species representing together about 40% of the overall molecular species. [14C]Palmitoyllyso-GPC was found to be acylated by resting platelets in equal amounts into 16:0-16:0 and into 16:0-20:4 species. The acylation rate of this lysophospholipid was increased by 3-fold and 14-fold when platelets were stimulated for 10 min with thrombin and the ionophore A23187, respectively. Essentially the same two molecular species were synthesized upon stimulation but with a higher preference for arachidonate than for palmitate. We investigated the mechanisms responsible for the incorporation of palmitate and arachidonate by examining the enzymatic acylation of [14C]palmitoyllyso-GPC by platelet homogenates. The percentage of the various molecular species formed when CoA, ATP, and Mg2+ were added excludes the CoA, ATP-dependent pathway as being involved in the acylation reactions previously observed. In the absence of ATP, CoA-independent transacylations appear to play a crucial role in the synthesis of the 16:0-20:4 species whereas the addition of CoA greatly favored dipalmitoyl-GPC synthesis. The involvement of CoA-dependent mechanisms in the synthesis of dipalmitoyl-GPC was demonstrated as follows: (i) the labeling in the sn-2 position of the dipalmitoyl-GPC synthesized in the presence of CoA was not modified when free unlabeled palmitic acid was added to the incubation medium and (ii) platelet homogenates were unable to esterify lysolecithin with added labeled palmitic acid in the presence of CoA only.