Asymmetry in the renewal of molecular classes of phosphatidylcholine in the rat-erythrocyte membrane.

1. Rat-blood phospholipids were labeled in vivo with [32P]phosphate. The erythrocytes were treated with phospholipase A2 plus sphingomyelinase to discriminate between the labeling patterns of the phospholipids from the inner and outer layer of the membrane. 2. The specific activities of the more unsaturated classes of phosphatidylcholine were higher in the outer layer of the erythrocyte membrane than in the inner layer. The disaturated class, however, had the highest specific activity in the inner layer. 3. After incubating 32P-labeled erythrocytes in unlabeled plasma, the labeling pattern recovered in the molecular classes of plasma phosphatidylcholine was very similar to that of the phosphatidylcholines in the outer layer of the erythrocyte membrane. 4. It is proposed that the exchange of phosphatidylcholines between plasma and the outer layer of the erythrocyte is mainly responsible for the renewal of the unsaturated phosphatidylcholines of the erythrocyte, and that the acylation activity of the erythrocyte is directed towards the formation of disaturated phosphatidylcholines at the inside of the membrane.