Significantly high synthetic activities of cholesterol sulfate in the nasal, oral and tracheal mucosae of guinea pigs.

Abstract

Cholesterol sulfate (CS) is widely distributed in mammalian tissues and various physiological roles for it have been suggested, but the presence of CS in the nasal tissues has not yet been reported. This is the first report in which the CS content and the activity of its regulatory enzymes, cholesterol sulfotransferase (CST) and cholesterol sulfate sulfatase (CSS), in the nasal mucosa of the guinea pig were examined and compared with those in the oral and tracheal mucosae. The highest concentration of CS was detected in the oral mucosa and the second highest in the nasal mucosa. The activity of CST was also highest in the oral mucosa and the second highest in the nasal mucosa. On the other hand, that of CSS was highest in the tracheal mucosa. The accumulation of CS is assumed to be related to squamous differentiation, because the activity of transglutaminase type 1 in the nasal, oral and tracheal mucosae coincided with the order of the concentration of CS in those tissues. These results suggested that the accumulation of CS is correlated with the morphological differences between the oral stratified squamous and the nasal or tracheal pseudostratified epithelium, and furthermore that the nasal epithelium is more susceptible to squamous metaplasia than the tracheal epithelium in the guinea pig.