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Brain Advance Access published online on September 4, 2008
Brain, doi:10.1093/brain/awn190
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© 2008 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

A defect of sphingolipid metabolism modifies the properties of normal appearing white matter in multiple sclerosis

David Wheeler, Veera Venkata Ratnam Bandaru, Peter A. Calabresi, Avindra Nath and Norman J. Haughey

Department of Neurology, Richard T Johnson Division of Neuroimmunology and Neurological Infections, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA

Correspondence to: Norman J. Haughey, Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Meyer 6-109, 600 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA E-mail: nhaughe1{at}jhmi.edu

Maintaining the appropriate complement and content of lipids in cellular membranes is critical for normal neural function. Accumulating evidence suggests that even subtle perturbations in the lipid content of neurons and myelin can disrupt their function and may contribute to myelin and axonal degradation. In this study, we determined the composition and quantified the content of lipids and sterols in normal appearing white matter (NAWM) and normal appearing grey matter (NAGM) from control and multiple sclerosis brain tissues by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. Our results suggest that in active-multiple sclerosis, there is a shift in the lipid composition of NAWM and NAGM to a higher phospholipid and lower sphingolipid content. We found that this disturbance in lipid composition was reduced in NAGM but not in NAWM of inactive-multiple sclerosis. The pattern of disturbance in lipid composition suggests a metabolic defect that causes sphingolipids to be shuttled to phospholipid production. Modelling the biophysical consequence of this change in lipid composition of NAWM indicated an increase in the repulsive force between opposing bilayers that could explain decompaction and disruption of myelin structure.

Key Words: multiple sclerosis; sphingolipid; phospholipid; myelin

Abbreviations: 4-HNE, 4-hydroxynonenal; DLVO, Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek; FTY720, 2-amino-2-[2-(4-octylphenyl) ethyl]propane-1,3-diol hydrochloride; MBP, myelin basic protein; NAGM, normal appearing grey matter; NAWM, normal appearing white matter; PC, phosphtidylcholine; PE, phosphatidylethanolamine; PI, phosphitidylinositol; PLP, proteolipid protein; PS, phosphatidylserine; RRMS, relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis; S1P, sphingosine-1 phosphate

Received March 19, 2008. Revised July 15, 2008. Accepted July 29, 2008.


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