Isolation and characterization of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells deficient in acyl coenzyme A: cholesterol acyltransferase (ACAT) activity

The specific ACAT inhibitor compound 58-035 has been used to mimic the phenotype of an ACAT deficient mutant in 25-RA cells. 25-RA is a CHO cell line resistant to 25-hydroxycholesterol and contains five times more cholesterol ester than wild-type (WT) cells. 25-RA cells preincubated with 58-035 are 100 to 500 times more resistant to amphotericin B killing than untreated 25-RA. 100 x 10/sup 6/ mutagenized 25-RA cells underwent three rounds of amphotericin B killing and two rounds of 25-hydroxycholesterol killing (to remove WT revertants which are amphotericin B resistant). Thus far, three biochemically distinct mutants have been isolated containing 33% (AC27), 25% (AC90), and 10% (AC232) of the parental ACAT activity as measured by an /sup 3/H-oleate pulse in intact cells. When parental and mutant cell extracts are reconstituted into cholesterol containing liposomes the differences in ACAT activity remain. They have also found that 25-RA cells can survive in cholesterol free medium containing TMD, an inhibitor of cholesterol biosynthesis, presumably because of adequate supply of endogenous cholesterol from hydrolysis of its stored cholesterol ester. In contrast, under the same conditions, mutant AC232 is effectively killed ( greater than or equal to 99%) by cholesterol starvation, thus providing a potential selectionmore » procedure for isolating revertants of ACAT mutants.« less