Biochemical studies on cell fusion. II. Control of fusion response by lipid alteration

The preceding communication (Roos, D.S. and P.W. Choppin, 1985, J. Cell Biol. 101:1578-1590) described the lipid composition of a series of mouse fibroblast cell lines which vary in susceptibility to the fusogenic effects of polyethylene glycol (PEG). Two alterations in lipid content were found to be directly correlated with resistance to PEG-induced cell fusion: increases in fatty acyl chain saturation, and the elevation of neutral glycerides, including an unusual ether-linked compound. In this study, we have probed the association between lipid composition and cell fusion through the use of fatty acid supplements to the cellular growth medium, and show that the fusibility of cells can be controlled by altering their acyl chain composition. The parental Clone 1D cells contain moderately unsaturated fatty acids with a ratio of saturates to polyunsaturates (S/P) approximately 1 and fuse virtually to completion following a standard PEG treatment. By contrast, the lipids of a highly fusion-resistant mutant cell line, F40, are highly saturated (S/P approximately 4). When the S/P ratio of Clone 1D cells was increased to approximate that normally found in F40 cells by growth in the presence of high concentrations of saturated fatty acids, they became highly resistant to PEG. Reduction of the S/P ratio of F40 cells by growth in cis-polyunsaturated fatty acids rendered them susceptible to fusion. Cell lines F8, F16, etc., which are normally intermediate between Clone 1D and F40 in both lipid composition and fusion response, can be altered in either direction (towards either increased or decreased susceptibility to fusion) by the addition of appropriate fatty acids to the growth medium. Although trans-unsaturated fatty acids have phase-transition temperatures roughly similar to saturated compounds, and might therefore be expected to affect membrane fluidity in a similar manner, trans-unsaturated fatty acids exerted the same effect as cis-unsaturates on the control of PEG-induced cell fusion. This observation suggests that the control of cell fusion by alteration of fatty acid content is not due to changes in membrane fluidity, and thus that the fatty acids are involved in some other way in the modulation of cell fusion.