Subcellular compartmentation of glutathione and glutathione precursors. A high resolution immunogold analysis of the outer retina of guinea pig

Selective antibodies were used to assess the cellular and subcellular localization of glutathione, and the glutathione precursors gamma-glutamylcysteine, glutamate, and cysteine, in neuronal (photoreceptors) and non-neuronal (pigment epithelial cells and Muller cells) cell types in the outer retina of the guinea pig. In each cell type the highest level of glutathione immunoreactivity occurred in the mitochondria. The labeling density in the cytoplasmic matrix was higher (and the mitochondrial-cytoplasmic gold particle ratio lower) in pigment epithelial cells than in Muller cells and photoreceptors. The latter two cell types showed a mitochondrial-cytoplasmic gold particle ratio of 15.5 and 21.7, respectively. In contrast to glutathione, gamma-glutamylcysteine seemed to be enriched in the cytoplasmic matrix relative to the mitochondria. The immunogold labeling for this dipeptide was stronger in the pigment epithelial cells than in Muller cells and photoreceptors. Glutamate immunoreactivity was high in photoreceptors, intermediate in pigment epithelial cells, and low in Muller cells, while the cysteine immunogold signal was low in each cell type and cell compartment. The present results suggest that glutathione is concentrated in mitochondria but to different degrees in different cells. The low mitochondrial content of gamma-glutamylcysteine (the direct precursor of glutathione) is consistent with biochemical data indicating that glutathione is synthesized extramitochondrially and transported into the mitochondrial matrix. Judged from the immunocytochemical data, cysteine may be a rate-limiting factor in glutathione synthesis in each cell type while glutamate can be rate limiting only in Muller cells.