Formation of Lipid Oligosaccharides in a Tunicamycin Resistant Mutant of Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells

Abstract

The synthesis of lipid oligosaccharide intermediates of a tunicamycin resistant mutant of Chinese hamster ovary cells was investigated both in vivo and in vitro. It was shown that tunicamycin resistant mutant cells had a significantly lower rate of synthesis of lipid oligosaccharide in vivo and their pool of lipid oligosaccharide was smaller.
The formation of lipid oligosaccharides in vitro using microsomes, however, did not show any defect in the enzymes which were involved in this reaction. The rate of transfer of [³H]glucose from UDP-[³H]glucose into oligosaccharide of lipid intermediates was the same in wild type and mutant cells while that into glycoproteins was higher in mutant cells than in wild type cells.