N,N-dimethylsphingosine inhibition of sphingosine kinase and sphingosine 1-phosphate activity in human platelets.

Potential sphingosine (Sph) metabolites include phosphorylated, N-acylated, and N-methylated derivatives. Phosphorylated Sph, i.e., sphingosine 1-phosphate (Sph-1-P), may act as an autocrine stimulator of blood platelets, as it is abundantly stored in platelets and released extracellularly and its exogenous addition induces platelet activation. In this study, we evaluated Sph-1-P formation and its effects in human platelets in the presence of other Sph metabolites. On addition of [3H]Sph to intact platelets, the label was rapidly converted to Sph-1-P. This conversion into [3H]Sph-1-P was inhibited by N,N-dimethylsphingosine (DMS) in a dose-dependent manner, but not by other structurally related Sph derivatives, including ceramide. The inhibition of Sph-1-P formation by DMS was reproduced using a cell-free system (Sph kinase obtained from platelet cytosolic fractions) and much stronger than that by DL-threo-dihydrosphingosine, which had been considered to be the strongest inhibitor of Sph kinase. Administration of DMS to intact platelets resulted in a decrease in Sph-1-P mass and an increase in Sph mass. Furthermore, DMS inhibited the release of Sph-1-P from platelets stimulated with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate and inhibited platelet aggregation induced by exogenous addition of Sph-1-P. Collectively, our results indicate that DMS is useful as a Sph kinase inhibitor and that Sph-1-P actions as an autocrine stimulator of platelets are inhibited by DMS.