Like most other eukaryotes, Saccharomyces cerevisiae harbors a GPI anchoring machinery and uses it to attach proteins to membranes. While a few GPI proteins reside permanently at the plasma membrane, a majority of them gets further processed and is integrated into the cell wall by a covalent attachment to cell wall glucans. The GPI biosynthetic pathway is necessary for growth and survival of yeast cells. The GPI lipids are synthesized in the ER and added onto proteins by a pathway comprising 12 steps, carried out by 23 gene products, 19 of which are essential. Some of the estimated 60 GPI proteins predicted from the genome sequence serve enzymatic functions required for the biosynthesis and the continuous shape adaptations of the cell wall, others seem to be structural elements of the cell wall and yet others mediate cell adhesion. Because of its genetic tractability S. cerevisiae is an attractive model organism not only for studying GPI biosynthesis in general, but equally for investigating the intracellular transport of GPI proteins and the peculiar role of GPI anchoring in the elaboration of fungal cell walls.

Insulin resistance is associated with deficits in glucose metabolism. We tested whether the vascular and renal responses to insulin might contribute to insulin resistance. Generation of endothelial-derived vasodilator nitric oxide (NO), estimated after a 2-h period of insulin stimulation, was inhibited in the presence of high glucose. Immunoprecipitations indicated that insulin-induced endothelial signal transduction was mediated through an immediate complex formation of insulin receptor substrate (IRS) with phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase, which caused serine phosphorylation of a protein complex that was comprised of Akt kinase and endothelial NO synthase. The enzymatic complexes did not form when the endothelial insulin stimulation occurred in the presence of high glucose concentrations. By contrast, neither epithelial signal transduction nor sodium transport in renal epithelial cells was affected by high glucose. Hence, glucose does not appear to modulate either the epithelial IRS cascade or renal sodium retention. Dysfunction of the endothelial IRS cascade and NO generation, which suppresses efficient delivery of nutrients, may further exacerbate the metabolic syndrome of insulin resistance.

CWH8/YGR036c of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been identified as a dolichylpyrophosphate (Dol-PP) phosphatase that removes a phosphate from the Dol-PP generated by the oligosaccharyltransferase (OST), while it adds N-glycans to nascent glycoproteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Lack of CWH8 was proposed to interrupt the so called dolichol (Dol) cycle by trapping Dol in the form of Dol-PP in the ER lumen. Indeed, cwh8Delta mutants display a severe deficiency in N-glycosylation. We find that cwh8Delta mutants have strongly reduced levels of inositolphosphorylceramide (IPC), whereas its derivative, mannosyl-(inositol-P)2-ceramide (M(IP)2C) is not affected. Microsomes of cwh8Delta contain normal ceramide synthase and IPC synthesis activities. Within a large panel of mutants affecting Dol dependent pathways such as N- or O-glycosylation, or glycosylphosphatidyl inositol (GPI)-anchoring, only the mutants having a deficiency of N-glycan addition show the defect in IPC biosynthesis. By mutating genes required for the addition of N-glycans or by treating cells with tunicamycin (Tm) one can similarly reduce the steady state level of IPC and exactly reproduce the phenotype of cwh8Delta cells. Some potential mechanisms by which the lack of N-glycans could lead to the sphingolipid abnormality were further explored.

We have previously shown that the interleukin (IL)-4 signal transduction involves the Insulin Receptor Substrate (IRS) in human colorectal carcinoma cells LS513. In the present study it was tested whether IL-4 counters Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF)-1 through competition at the IRS signal transduction pathway and, thus, induces a molecular "insulin resistance" or whether IL-4 invokes an alternative signal transduction. The activated receptors of IL-4 and IGF-I both docked to IRS-1 and IRS-2 and invoked IRS complex formation with phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase, as assessed by immunoprecipitation and detection of the precipitated compounds by immunoblot analysis. Both, IL-4 and IGF-1, signaling pathways induced phosphorylation of Akt kinase in a PI 3-kinase-dependent manner, as assessed by addition of the PI 3-kinase inhibitor Ly294002. Interleukin-4 stimulation induced mono-phosphorylation at serine residue S473 of Akt kinase but failed to activate the kinase. Insulin-like growth factor-1 stimulation invoked dual-phosphorylation at S473 and T308 of Akt kinase and subsequent activation of the kinase. When LS513 cells were treated with IL-4 to induce mono-phosphorylation of Akt, dual- phosphorylation and activation of Akt kinase in response to IGF-1 were still intact. Interleukin-4 yet reduced cell growth by at least 50% both, in the absence and presence of growth factor IGF-1. In the LS513 cells, IL-4 stimulated phosphorylation of Jak2, an adapter molecule at the IL-4 receptor, and phosphorylation of transcription factor Stat6 both, in the absence and presence of IGF-1. We found a similar IL-4 signal transduction and growth suppression in multiple human cell cultures, including primary cells. Our findings indicate that the molecular mechanism underlying growth suppression by IL-4 may depend on gene-expression but not on "insulin/growth factor resistance" at IRS.