Localization and capacity of sphingomyelin digestion in the rat intestinal tract

Analysis of Glucosylceramides from Various Sources by Liquid Chromatography-Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry

“…Therefore, significant amounts of sphingolipids having various structures of sphingoid bases are ingested daily from foodstuff. Dietary sphingolipids consisted of sphingosine and sphinganine can be hydrolyzed to sphingoid bases, fatty acids and the polar head group by intestinal enzymes, and are then taken up by mucosal cells 28,29 . However, a large portion of sphingosine is metabolized to fatty acids after absorption and a small part is resynthesized to complex sphingolipids 30,31 .…”

Potential health benefits of sphingolipids in milk and dairy products

“…Dietary phospholipids and sphingolipids are not acted upon by lingual and gastric lipases, but the pancreatic one (occurring in in the intestinal lumen) does cleave fatty acids from their sn-2-position. Sphingomyelin leaves the stomach in a predominantly intact state and is first hydrolysed in the subsequent sections of the small and large intestine (Nyberg et al, 1997). The alkaline sphingomyelinase catalyses hydrolysis of sphingomyelin into ceramide and phosphocholine (Duan et al, 1995).…”

“…The alkaline sphingomyelinase catalyses hydrolysis of sphingomyelin into ceramide and phosphocholine (Duan et al, 1995). Enzymatic activity of sphingomyelinase is low in the duodenum and reaches the highest level in the middle and lower parts of the small intestine (Nyberg et al, 1997;Duan et al, 1995). Subsequently, ceramides can be further hydrolyzed to sphingosine and fatty acid by ceramidase, which cleaves the amide bond.…”

Conversion of apical plasma membrane sphingomyelin to ceramide attenuates the intoxication of host cells by cholera toxin

“…Various SMase isoforms have been described and implicated in physiologic processes, including cell differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis and degradation of dietary SM (Nilsson, 1968;Nyberg et al, 1997); also in diseases such as Niemann-Pick syndrome, pulmonary oedema (Goggel et al, 2004), Alzheimer's disease (Lee et al, 2004) and atherosclerosis (Tabas, 1999). Membrane SM may also affect infection by HIV and prion protein, and trafficking of endogenous glycolipids (Mahfoud et al, 2002;Cheng et al, 2006;Rawat et al, 2006).…”