Free sphingoid bases in normal murine tissues.

Free sphingoid bases, which have been considered not to occur naturally, were detected in murine tissues by derivatization with o-phthalaldehyde and the use of high-performance liquid chromatography. The concentrations were 10-30 pmol/mg tissue. The lung contained the largest amounts of sphingoid bases. In the molecular species of sphingoid bases, the most abundant was C18-sphingenine followed by C18-sphinganine, 4-hydroxysphinganine and C20-sphingenine, in that order. The central nervous tissues contained relatively high amounts of C20-sphingenine and there was a high concentration of 4-hydroxysphinganine in the kidney. In addition, galactosylsphingenine was detected simultaneously in the spinal cord and sciatic nerve. Sphingoid bases were purified from normal murine lungs using lipid-extraction, cation-exchange and silicic acid column chromatographies, alkaline saponification and preparative thin-layer chromatography. In the purified sphingoid bases, erythro-C18-sphingenine and erythro-C18-sphinganine were identified using thin-layer chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography and fast-atom-bombardment mass spectrometry. Free sphingoid bases occurring in normal tissues may be metabolic intermediates required for the synthesis or be products of degradation of the sphingolipids and function to regulate cellular metabolism.