Metabolism of GM1 ganglioside in cultured skin fibroblasts: anomalies in gangliosidoses, sialidoses, and sphingolipid activator protein (SAP, saposin) 1 and prosaposin deficient disorders

Cultured skin fibroblasts from controls and patients with lysosomal storage diseases were loaded with GM1 ganglioside that had been labelled with tritium in its ceramide moiety. After a 65-h or 240-h incubation, a large percentage of this ganglioside remained undegraded in GM1 gangliosidoses, whereas in the other storage diseases studied, one of its metabolites accumulated by 2-4 fold relative to controls. Labelled GM2 ganglioside accumulated in 4 variants of GM2 gangliosidosis, whereas labelled GM3 ganglioside accumulated in sialidosis, galactosialidoses and sphingolipid activator protein 1 (SAP-1, saposin B) and prosaposin (saposin A, B, C and D) deficient lipidoses. The reduced degradation of GM3 ganglioside in the SAP-1 and prosaposin deficiencies was attributed to the deficient function of SAP-1. The prosaposin deficient cells also showed a reduced re-utilization of radioactive metabolites from GM1 ganglioside (i.e. sphingosine and fatty acid) for phospholipid biosynthesis compared with fibroblasts from the SAP-1 deficient patient or normal controls. This anomaly was ascribed to the previously shown defect in ceramide degradation in prosaposin deficiency.