The Belgrade rat has a microcytic, hypochromic anemia inherited as an autosomal recessive trait (gene symbol b). Transferrin-dependent iron uptake is defective because of a mutation in Nramp2 (now DMT1, also called DCT1), the protein responsible for endosomal iron efflux. Hence, Belgrade reticulocytes are iron deficient. We show that a chromatographic method is able to measure the amount of 'free' heme in reticulocytes. Most of the 'free' heme is the result of biosynthesis. Succinylacetone, an inhibitor of heme synthesis, decreases the level of 'free' heme and cycloheximide, an inhibitor of globin synthesis, increases the 'free' heme level. In a pulse-chase experiment with 59Fe-transferrin, the 'free' heme pool behaves as an intermediate, with a half-life of just over 2 h. Belgrade reticulocytes contain about 40% as much 'free' heme as do heterozygous or homozygous reticulocytes. This deficiency of 'free' heme slows initiation of translation in Belgrade reticulocytes by increasing the level of an inhibitor of initiation. Thus the Belgrade rat makes a whole animal model available with chronic heme deficiency.
A long-chain neutral phospholipid, dioleoylphosphatidylcholine, was found to support protein kinase C activation by cis-fatty acid and diacylglycerol (DAG). This effect of phosphatidylcholine (PC) is totally dependent on the presence of cis-fatty acid; PC greatly stimulates the cis-fatty acid-induced protein kinase C activity, but it does not activate protein kinase C at all, even in the presence of DAG, if cis-fatty acid is absent. DAG, however, plays a modulatory role in the presence of Ca2+; it further enhances the PC-potentiated cis-fatty acid activation of protein kinase C. Although the activities of all three protein kinase C subtypes tested (types I, II and III) are supported by this PC mechanism, type III is most sensitive to the DAG effect, and it is activated synergistically by cis-fatty acid and DAG. The potency of PC to support the synergistic activation of this subtype is equivalent to that of phosphatidylserine (PS). There are several differences, however, between PC- and PS-supported synergism observed in type III protein kinase C: (1) Ca(2+)-sensitivity is different; PC requires higher concentrations of Ca2+ (10-20 microM-Ca2+) than those required for PS (micromolar Ca2+); (2) PC/cis-fatty acid/DAG-induced autophosphorylation of protein kinase C subtypes (types I, II and III) is very weak, whereas PS/cis-fatty acid/DAG strongly stimulate autophosphorylation of these subtypes under the conditions at which both PC and PS systems fully activate the protein kinase C in terms of histone phosphorylation. These observations suggest that a neutral phospholipid such as PC may also participate in the activation and differential regulation of protein kinase C.
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