Enzymes lipid preparation

As for Basic Protocol 1, the LOX enzyme is prepared according to the Support Protocol. However, more care should be taken to reduce turbidity and other UV-absorbing materials caused by suspended lipid and pigments, especially when low activity is expected (requiring more enzyme addition). Triton X-100 is a UV absorber, and it causes more lipid and pigments to be suspended. Partial purification may be necessary. HEPES and PIPES buffers are not used in this method because of excessive absorption at 234 nm (0.5 to 0.6 absorbance for 0.1 M solutions) MES is useful with limitations (0.2 absorbance for 0.1 M solution). 

Okahata, Y, Tsuruta, T., Ijiro, K., and Ariga, K., Preparations of Langmuir-Blodgett films of enzyme-lipid complexes a glucose sensor membrane, Thin Solid Films, 180, 65-72, 1989. 

Evidence for the participation of membrane components in this way comes from the selective Upid requirements displayed by certain membrane enzymes and the release of enzyme-lipid complexes from membranes with detergents [20-23]. Visual evidence for the existance of specialized regions of the cell membrane is provided by the appearance of negatively-stained preparations under the electron microscope. Thus in Micrococcus lysodeikticus ATPase activity is associated with a membrane-bound complex made up from 6 subunits surrounding a central particle [16]. 

Because skin exhibits many of the properties of a lipid membrane, dermal penetration can often be enhanced by increasing a molecule s lipophilicity. Preparation of an ester of an alcohol is often used for this purpose since this stratagem simultaneously time covers a hydrophilic group and provides a hydrophobic moiety the ready cleavage of this function by the ubiquitous esterase enzymes assures availability of the parent drug molecule. Thus acylation of the primary alcohol in flucinolone (65) with propionyl chloride affords procinonide (66) the same transform... 

Drugs that are too highly hydrophilic are often absorbed rather poorly from the gastrointestinal tract. It is sometimes possible to circumvent this difficulty by preparing esters of such compounds so as to change their water lipid partition characteristics in order to enhance absorption. Once absorbed, the esters are cleaved by the numerous esterase enzymes in the bloodstream, releasing free drug. 

Lipases are the enzymes for which a number of examples of a promiscuous activity have been reported. Thus, in addition to their original activity comprising hydrolysis of lipids and, generally, catalysis of the hydrolysis or formation of carboxylic esters [107], lipases have been found to catalyze not only the carbon-nitrogen bond hydrolysis/formation (in this case, acting as proteases) but also the carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions. The first example of a lipase-catalyzed Michael addition to 2-(trifluoromethyl)propenoic acid was described as early as in 1986 [108]. Michael addition of secondary amines to acrylonitrile is up to 100-fold faster in the presence of various preparations of the hpase from Candida antariica (CAL-B) than in the absence of a biocatalyst (Scheme 5.20) [109]. 

These data demonstrate that both GSH and GSSG have profound effects on Na/K ATPase activity and may act in concert to modify enzyme activity during oxidant stress. However, it should be recognized that the steric conformation of an isolated enzyme preparation in a chemically buffered solution may be considerably different to the native enzyme located in a dynamic lipid bilayer. For this reason, these investigations have been extended to include a variety of preparations in which the Na/K pump is in its native environment. 

All isoforms of PKC are predominantly localized to the cytosol and, upon activation, undergo translocation to either plasma or nuclear membranes. However, newly synthesized PKCs are localized to the plasmalemma and are in an open conformation in which the auto inhibitory pseudosubstrate sequence is removed from the substrate binding domain. The maturation of PKC isoforms is effected by phosphoinositide-dependentkinase-I (PDK-I), which phosphorylates a conserved threonine residue in the activation loop of the catalytic (C4) domain [24]. This in turn permits the autophosphorylation of C-terminus threonine and serine residues in PKC, a step which is a prerequisite for catalytic activity (see also Chs 22 and 23). The phosphorylated enzyme is then released into the cytosol, where it is maintained in an inactive conformation by the bound pseudosubstrate. It was originally thought that 3-phosphoinositides such as PI(3,4)P2 and PI(3,4,5)P3 could directly activate PKCs. However, it now seems more likely that these lipids serve to activate PDK-1 (a frequent contaminant of PKC preparations). 

Enzyme-catalyzed transfer of KDO from CMP-KDO (127) into a lipid-A acceptor has been studied by Heath and coworkers,1 using a cell-free system from Escherichia coli O 111 J-5. LPS from the organism did not function as an acceptor, and only weak acceptor-activity was displayed147-148 by lipid A preparations obtained by mild, acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of LPS. Base-catalyzed, hydrolytic removal of the ester-linked, but not the amide-linked, fatty acid residues from lipid A resulted in an acceptor of maximal activity1 (see Scheme 38 compare Scheme 39). 

To obtain tissue preparations whose constituents were maintained as closely as possible to their state in vivo, the material had to be fixed, i.e. the enzymes inactivated so that cell structures were instantaneously preserved, an almost unattainable ideal. Formalin was the favored fixative, but others (e.g. picric acid), were also employed. Different methods of fixation caused sections to have different appearances. Further artifacts were introduced because of the need to dehydrate the preparations so that they could be stained by dyes, many of which were lipid-soluble organic molecules. Paraffin wax was used to impregnate the fixed, dehydrated material. The block of tissue was then sectioned, originally by hand with a cut-throat razor, and later by a mechanical microtome. The sections were stained and mounted in balsam for examination. Hematoxylin (basophilic) and eosin (acidophilic) (H and E staining) were the commonest stains, giving blue nuclei and pink cytoplasm. Eosinophils in the blood were recognized in this way. 

The microsomal fraction was first obtained by Claude in 1943. In addition to lipid in the fraction, he noted the presence of RNA-rich granules, consistent with reports from Brachet that cytoplasm stained for RNA by the methyl-green/pyronin procedure. Glucose-6-phos-phatase was a prominent enzyme when the fraction was prepared from liver. Since density gradient sedimentation showed G-6-P-ase was absent from mitochondria and lysosomes, it was used as a marker for liver microsomes. 

FIGURE 4.6 Effect of solid-state enzyme treatment on hypolipidemic activities of psyllium. Plasma lipid concentrations in hamsters were measured at day 35. Values are mean SEM (vertical bars) for nine animals per group. Within each response parameter, values not sharing common letters are significantly different, P<0.05. Modified Psy-1 and modified Psy-2 represent the two modified psyllium preparations using the Viscozyme L and the Shearzyme 500 L, respectively, under the solid-state reaction conditions (re-drawn from Allen et al., 2004). 

Walde P, Ichikawa S. Enzymes inside lipid vesicles preparation, reactivity and applications. Biomol Eng 2001 18 143. 

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