Abstract
Me2SO is a polar solvent that is widely used in biochemistry, pharmacology, and industry. Although there are several reports in the literature concerning the biological effects of Me2SO, the total cellular response remains unclear. In this paper, DNA microarray technology combined with the hierarchical clustering bioinformatics tool was used to assess the effects of Me2SO on yeast cells. We found that yeast exposed to Me2SO increased phospholipid biosynthesis through up-regulated gene expression. It was confirmed by Northern blotting that the level of INO1 and OPI3 gene transcripts, encoding key enzymes in phospholipid biosynthesis, were significantly elevated following treatment with Me2SO. Furthermore, the phospholipid content of the cells increased during exposure to Me2SO as shown by conspicuous incorporation of a lipophilic fluorescent dye (3,3'-dihexyloxacarbocyanine iodide) into the cell membranes. From these results we propose that Me2SO treatment induces membrane proliferation in yeast cells to alleviate the adverse affects of this chemical on membrane integrity.
Highlights
Dimethyl sulfoxide (Me2SO)1 is widely used as a solvent in the chemical industry and as a cryoprotectant in biotechnology
We performed Northern blot analysis of genes involved in phospholipid biosynthesis, which demonstrated that INO1, OPI3, MET6, and MET17 are induced by exposure to Me2SO (Fig. 5)
If there was any defection or anomaly in gene expression in the phospholipid synthesis pathway, the relative proportions of phospholipid components, such as PC, PI, PS, and PE, should change (32). These studies demonstrated that the amounts of phospholipid increased greatly after 4 – 6 h of Me2SO treatment (Fig. 6, A and B), but there was no alteration in the relative proportions of phospholipid components such as PC, PI, PS, and PE in comparison with the non-treated cells (Fig. 6A)
Summary
Me2SO, dimethyl sulfoxide; DMS, dimethyl sulfide; AAD, aryl-alcohol dehydrogenase; DiOC6, 3,3Јdihexyloxacarbocyanine iodide; PC, phosphatidylcholine; PI, phosphatidylinositol; PS, phosphatidylserine; PE, phosphatidylethanolamine; AdoMet, S-adenosylmethionine; AdoHcy, S-adenosylhomocysteine; ER, endoplasmic reticulum; LAS, linear alkylbenzene sulfonates
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