Glutamine synthetase-I. A comparative study of its distribution in animals and its inhibition by DL-allo-σ-hydroxylysine

Cerebral blood flow and metabolism in chronically hyperammonemic rats: effect of an acute ammonia challenge

The effects of chronic hyperammonemia on cerebral metabolism were studied in rats four and eight weeks after the construction of a portacaval shunt. Compared to sham-operated controls, shunted animals had increased arterial concentrations of ammonia and glutamine and decreased glutamate. Cerebral blood flow, measured by xenon 133 washout in animals lightly anesthetized with nitrous oxide, increased from a control of 91 +/- 5 (mean +/- SEM) to 139 +/- 20 ml per 100 gm tissue per minute after shunting for eight weeks; however, the cerebral metabolic rate for oxygen was not different from control four or eight weeks after the shunting procedure. Following intraperitoneal administration of a small ammonium acetate load (2.6 mmol/kg), eight-week portacaval animals consistently underwent a fall in cerebral blood flow and cerebral oxygen consumption and developed high-voltage slow waves in the electroencephalogram. Glutamine was produced by the brains of all groups of animals; the cerebral metabolic rate for glutamine was greater than control in eight-week portacaval rats, the only animals to show a net uptake of ammonia into brain. The findings suggest that increased cerebral sensitivity to ammonia, along with nonspecific effects of chronic portal-systemic shunting, may lead to uncoupling of cerebral blood flow and oxidative metabolism.

Glutamine synthetase in kidneys of monkey and man

1. The synthesis of gamma-glutamylhydroxamate from glutamate and hydroxylamine has been utilized as an approximation of glutamine synthetase activity in kidneys of rabbit, rat, dog, monkey and man. 2. Kidneys of rabbit contain glutamine synthetase in high activity; those of rat, in intermediate activity; and those of dog, monkey and man, in negligible activity. 3. No more enzyme is present in kidneys of the latter two species than in those of the dog, in which the enzyme is generally considered to be absent.

Glutamate and glutamine in the brain of the neonatal rat during hypercapnia

In order to study the influence of hypercapnia on the content of glutamate and glutamine in the developing brain, pregnant rats and their offspring were kept in CO2 rich (6-10%) atmosphere and the litters were killed at different ages between 4 and 28 days. In the hypercapnic rats the content of both amino acids in the brain increases with age with almost the same time course as in normocapnic rats. At any age the glutamate content is lower in the hypercapnic animals than in control rats, whereas the glutamine content, beyond the first 8 days of life is increased. Both effects are rapidly reversible on return to air breathing. Although the glutamate-glutamine system is in full development, the influence of hypercapnia can be compared to that observed in adult rats. Hypercapnia did not change the glutaminase and the glutamine synthetase activity of the brain.

On the stimulation of gluconeogenesis by L-lysine in isolated rat kidney cortex tubules

1. L-Lysins (2 mM) stimulates (30-50%) gluconeogenesis in isolated kidney cortex tubules from 24-h-starved rats in the presence of lactate and Krebs cycle intermediates, but not pyruvate and glutamate. The stimulation of renal gluconeogenesis by L-lysine is a short-term effect. The effect is of catalytic nature, but not due to sparing of substrate. L-lysine caused a decrease of lactate/pyruvate ratio. 2. Apart from L-lysine, 1-10 mM NH-4Cl (16-40%) and 2 mM aspartate (66%) were capable to stimulate gluconeogenesis from lactate. Other amino acids tested did not stimulate renal gluconeogenesis, except L-alanine. The stimulation of gluconeogenesis by lysine was not additive to the stimulation by NH-4Cl. Likewise, there was no stimulation of gluconeogenesis from lactate by L-lysine in the presence of glutamate or arnithine. Levels of ammonia, glutamate and aspartate were elevated in the presence of L-lysine, NH-4Cl or glutamate about two-fold, were capable to stimulate gluconeogenesis. 3. The stimulation of gluconeogenesis by L-lysine from malate, succinate and oxoglutarate was abolished in the presence of amino oxy-acetate (0.05 mM), whereas controls were not significantly affected. 4. After 1 h of incubation about 5% of added [U-14C] lysine was recovered as 14-CO-2. The extra ammonia formed in the presence of L-lysine would also correspond with about 5-10% of added lysine being metabolized. 5. 14-CO-2 formation from [1-14C] butyrate and [1-14C] palmitate was inhibited by 20-30% in the presence of 2 mM L-lysine. 6. O-2 uptake and cellular levels of K+ were not significantly affected by L-lysine. 14-CO-2 fixation from pyruvate and 14-CO-2 formation from [1-14C]-pyruvate by isolated, intact rat liver mitochondria remained unchanged by L-lysine. Likewise no direct effect of L-lysine on enzyme activities could be detected. 7.

CONCLUSION

The data seem compatible with the assumption that stimulation of gluconeogenesis in isolated kidney cortex tubules by L-lysine is due to a stimulation of the malate-aspartate shuttle as a consequence of an increased provision of glutamate and aspartate.

The distinction between gamma-glutamylhydroxamate synthetase and L-glutamine-hydroxylamine glutamyltransferase activities in rat tissues

The formation of gamma-glutamylhydroxamate by homogenates under optimum assay condition showed an inconstancy in the ratios of the enzyme activities utilizing l-glutamate and ATP (gamma-glutamylhydroxamate synthetase) and l-glutamine and ADP (l-glutamine-hydroxylamine glutamyltransferase) in a number of normal and neoplastic rat tissues. Although gamma-glutamylhydroxamate synthetase activities in adult livers and kidneys were identical in males and females, l-glutamine-hydroxylamine glutamyltransferase activities in the organs of females were significantly lower. The developmental formations of the two activities in liver, kidney, brain and muscle were not simultaneous. The l-glutamine-hydroxylamine glutamyltransferase activity in foetal liver or neonatal kidney could be prematurely evoked by thyroxine, but the gamma-glutamylhydroxamate synthetase activity remained unchanged. Injections of cortisol also had dissimilar effects on the two activities in thymus and hepatomas. The discrepant tissue distribution, asynchronous developmental formation and differential response to several hormonal stimuli provide evidence in vivo that the two activities are not catalysed by the same protein.

The distribution between gamma-glutamylhydrozamate synthetase and L-glutamine-hydroxylamine glutamyltransferase activities in rat tissues. Studies in vitro

Two common ways of measuring the potential for glutamine synthesis in a tissue are the rates of formation of gamma-glutamylhydroxamate either by synthesis from glutamate (the glutamylhydroxamate synthetase reaction) or by transfer from glutamine (the glutamyltransferase reaction); it has not been established, however, that either reaction is a specific measure of glutamine synthetase. By differential extraction of glutamylhydroxamate synthetase and glutamyltransferase activities from water homogenates of several rat tissues I obtained an extract, rich in glutamylhydroxamate synthetase activity but nearly devoid of glutamyltransferase activity, and a fraction, solubilized by deoxycholate from the pellet, which contained virtually no glutamylhydroxamate synthetase activity but most of the original glutamyltransferase activity. Synthesis of glutamine, quantitatively similar to the gamma-glutamylhydroxamate formed by glutamylhydroxamate synthetase, is catalysed in the water extract but not in the particulate fraction. gamma-Glutamylhydroxamate formation by glutamylhydroxamate synthetase and glutamyltransferase shows discrepant substrate and metal specificities and can be differentially inhibited by l-methionine sulphoximine, phosphate and adenine nucleotides. The concordance between the formation of glutamine and gamma-glutamylhydroxamate by glutamylhydroxamate synthetase but not by glutamyltransferase and the different solubilities of the glutamylhydroxamate synthetase and glutamyltransferase enzyme activities demonstrate that these two activities are not inextricably associated; they therefore cannot be catalysed exclusively by the same protein.

Transport of glutamine and glutamate in kidney mitochondria in relation to glutamine deamidation

1. In the absence of added ADP glutamine is transformed by pig kidney mitochondria to ammonium glutamate, which appears in the external medium. This reaction is stimulated only slightly by the addition of ADP, but under these conditions about 20% of the glutamate is oxidized to aspartate. 2. Externally added glutamate is oxidized to aspartate, and at about the same rate as glutamine. 3. The net rates of glutamine and glutamate influx into the intramitochondrial compartment are very slow. 4. The phosphate-dependent glutaminase activity of intact mitochondria is stimulated by the provision of energy. 5. The provision of energy also decreases the concentration of glutamate and increases the concentration of glutamine in the intramitochondrial compartment. These energy-linked changes in the glutamine and glutamate concentrations are of equal magnitude. 6. It is suggested that transport of glutamine and glutamate across the inner membrane of kidney mitochondria occurs by an obligatory exchange between the two metabolites, and is electrogenic. The existence of an electrogenic glutamine-glutamate anti-porter is proposed.

Control of glutamine synthesis in rat liver

1. On perfusion of livers from fed rats with a semi-synthetic medium containing no added amino acids there is a rapid release of glutamine during the first 15min (15.6+/-0.8mumol/h per g wet wt.; mean+/-s.e.m. of 35 experiments), followed by a low linear rate of production (3.6+/-0.3mumol/h per g wet wt.; mean+/-s.e.m. of three experiments). The rapid initial release can be accounted for as wash-out of preexisting intracellular glutamine. 2. Addition of readily permeating substrates, or substrate combinations, giving rise to intracellular glutamate or ammonia, or both, did not appreciably increase the rate of glutamine production over the endogenous rate. The maximum rate obtained was from proline plus alanine; even then the rate represented less than one-fortieth of the capacity of glutamine synthetase measured in vitro. 3. Complete inhibition of respiration in the perfusions [no erythrocytes in the medium; 1mm-cyanide; N(2)+CO(2) (95:5) in the gas phase] or perfusion with glutamine synthetase inhibitors [l-methionine dl-sulphoximine; dl-(+)-allo-delta-hydroxylysine] abolishes the low linear rate of glutamine synthesis, but not the initial rapid release of glutamine. 4. In livers from 48h-starved rats initial release (0-15min) of glutamine was decreased (10.6+/-1.1mumol/h per g wet wt.; mean+/-s.e.m. of 11 experiments) and the subsequent rate of glutamine production was lower than in livers from fed rats. Again proline plus alanine was the only substrate combination giving an increase significantly above the endogenous rate. 5. The rate of glutamine synthesis de novo by the liver is apparently unrelated to the tissue content of glutamate or ammonia. 6. The blood glutamine concentration is increased by 50% within 1h of elimination of the liver from the circulation of rats in vivo. 7. There is an output of glutamine by the brain under normal conditions; the mean arterio-venous difference for six rats was 0.023mumol/ml. 8. The high potential activity of liver glutamine synthetase appears to be inhibited by some unknown mechanism: the function of the liver under normal conditions is probably the disposal of glutamine produced by extrahepatic tissues.