Fatty acid remodeling in cellular glycerophospholipids following the activation of human T cells

Changes in fatty acid (FA) and glycerophospholipid (GPL) metabolism associated with cell cycle entry are not fully understood. In this study FA-GPL remodeling was investigated in resting and proliferating primary human T cells. Significant changes were measured in the composition and distribution of FAs in GPLs following receptor activation of human T cells. The FA distribution of proliferating T cells was very similar to that of the human Jurkat T cell line and when the stimulus was removed from proliferating T cells, they stopped proliferating and the FA distribution largely reverted back to that of resting T cells. The cellular content of saturated and monounsaturated FAs was significantly increased in proliferating cells, which was associated with an induction of FA synthase and stearoyl-CoA desaturase-1 gene expression. Additionally, cellular arachidonate was redistributed in GPLs in a distinct pattern that was unlike any other FAs. This redistribution was associated with an induction of CoA-dependent and CoA-independent remodeling. Accordingly, significant changes in the expression of several acyl-CoA synthetases, lysophospholipid acyltransferases, and phospholipase A(2) were measured. Overall, these results suggest that metabolic pathways are activated in proliferating T cells that may represent fundamental changes associated with human cell proliferation.