Brain 3 ,5 -cyclic phosphate diesterase

Tsukada (30) have examined developmental changes of the enzyme in chick brain and spinal cord. Enzymic activity appears at about the eighteenth day of incubation and increases rapidly until 3 days after hatching in the brain and between 18 and 21 days of incubation in the spinal cord. These are precisely the periods of active myelination in the brain and spinal cord of the chick, respectively. Similarly, brain tissue of the newborn rat is devoid of cyclic phosphate diesterase activity it appears at about 8 days after birth and increases dramatically between the tenth and thirty-fifth day of life (29). This coincides precisely with the development of myelin in this species. The diesterase is essentially absent in the brain of the jimpy mouse (31), a lethal mutant devoid of myelin in the central nervous system. It is also absent from the spinal cord of this mutant. The enzyme is about 50% deficient in brain tissue of the quaking mouse (29), a mutant with partial deficiency of myelin. There is no activity in nerve fibers and ganglia from a variety of invertebrates such as squid, octopus, crab, shrimp, and starfish. Nerve tissue in these organisms is nonmyelinated. All these observations point to an intimate association of the enzyme with myelin in vivo. 

Early studies revealed that the 3, 5 -cyclic phosphate diesterase is present in all mammalian tissues (38, 33, 36), being most active in cerebral cortex (36, 37). It has also been identified in extracts of liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica), the common earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris), and fly larvae (36) and it has been studied in marine organisms (38), the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discovdeum (39, AO), and in E. coli (Al). The enzyme has been partially purified from beef heart (30), dog heart, (A8) and bovine brain (37, A3). No highly purified preparations have yet been obtained and most studies have been performed with relatively crude preparations. 

In addition to the proposed regulatory role of ATP and pyrophosphate, some possibility exists that 3, 5 -cyclic phosphate diesterase is under physiological control. Such ideas arose through observations of Cheung (43, 62) that the partially purified enzyme from beef brain was markedly activated by snake venom. The stimulatory factor was labile at extreme pH it was not dialyzable and appeared to be a protein. A similar activating factor is also present in brain tissue (63) and is removed during purification of the diesterase. It seems to interact stoichiometrically with the enzyme. The activator is destroyed by trypsin and is not proteolytic itself. The precise role of this protein in regulating the phosphodiesterase in vivo is not yet established, however. 

Several analogs have been examined as substrates for nucleoside cyclic phosphate diesterase purified from a variety of tissues. In particular, Nb-monobutyryl-cAMP and DBcAMP are not hydrolyzed by cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase from heart 6, liver O,/ adipose tissue23,26,78 gr brain... 

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