Application of solid-phase extraction on anion-exchange cartridges to quantify 5'-nucleotidase activity

A new, sensitive ecto-5'-nucleotidase assay for compound screening

Ecto-5'-nucleotidase (eN) is a membrane-bound enzyme that hydrolyzes extracellular nucleoside-5'-monophosphates yielding the respective nucleoside and phosphate. Increased levels of eN expression have been observed in many cancer cells. By increasing extracellular adenosine concentrations, they contribute to their proliferative, angiogenic, metastatic, and immunosuppressive effects. Therefore, eN is of considerable interest as a novel drug target for the treatment of cancer as well as of inflammatory diseases. In this study, we developed, optimized, and applied a highly sensitive radiometric assay using [³H]adenosine-5'-monophosphate (AMP) as a substrate. The reaction product [³H]adenosine was separated from [³H]AMP by precipitation of the latter with lanthanum chloride and subsequent filtration through glass fiber filters. Conditions were optimized to reproducibly collect the [³H]adenosine-containing filtrate used for quantitative determination. Validation of the assay yielded a mean Z' factor of 0.73, which demonstrates its suitability for high-throughput screening. The new assay shows a limit of detection that is at least 30-fold lower than those of common colorimetric methods (e.g., optimized malachite green assay and capillary electrophoresis-based assay procedures), and it is also superior to a recently developed luciferase-based assay.

Ion-exchange column chromatographic method for assaying purine metabolic pathway enzymes

High energy phosphate levels fall rapidly during cardiac ischemia and recover slowly (more than one week) during reperfusion. The slow recovery of ATP may reflect a lack of purine metabolic precursors and/or increased activity of purine catabolic enzymes such as 5'-nucleotidase (5'-NT, EC 3.1.3.5) and adenosine deaminase (ADA, EC 3.5.4.4). The activity of enzymes involved in both the catabolism of ATP precursors (5-NT and ADA) and the restoration of ATP from slow synthetic pathways [adenosine kinase (AK, EC 2.7.1.20), adenine phosphoribosyl transferase (APRT, EC 2.4.2.7) and hypoxanthine phosphoribosyl transferase (HPRT, EC 2.4.2.8)] may directly affect the rate of ATP recovery. Strategies to enhance recovery will depend on the relative activity of these enzymes following ischemia. Their activity in different species and their response to ischemia are not well characterized. Hence, rapid assay methods for these enzymes would facilitate detailed time course studies of their activities in postischemic myocardium. We modified a single ion-exchange column chromatographic method using DEAE-Sephadex to determine the products of incubation of 5'-NT, AK, APRT and HPRT with their respective substrates. The uniformity of the final product measurement procedure for all assays permits the activities of the four enzymes to be rapidly determined in a single tissue sample and facilitates the study of a large number of samples. This technique should also be useful for enzymes of the pyrimidine metabolic pathway.

Isolation and characterization of AMP deaminase from mammalian (rabbit) myocardium

AMP deaminase (AMP aminohydrolase, EC 3.5.4.6) is a ubiquitous enzyme in eukaryotes, which may play a role in ATP catabolism during myocardial ischaemia. We report isolation of AMP deaminase from rabbit myocardium with a 19% recovery and a 650-fold enrichment, using a newly devised protocol involving sequential cation-exchange, gel-permeation and affinity chromatographies. The cardiac AMP deaminase preparation described was electrophoretically and chromatographically homogeneous and contained one unique N-terminal residue (leucine). The isolated enzyme was sensitive to various cations (K+, Mg2+, Ca2+). The pH optimum of purified cardiac AMP deaminase was 6.8, its pI was 6.5, and it displayed substrate-specificity toward 5'-AMP. The subunit molecular mass of rabbit heart AMP deaminase on SDS/PAGE (81 kDa) and the holoenzyme molecular mass as estimated by non-denaturing size-exclusion h.p.l.c. (330 kDa) indicated that the native enzyme was a tetramer. Cardiac AMP deaminase displayed a sigmoidal substrate-saturation curve in the presence of 100 mM KCl. Apparent Michaelis constants were a Km of 5.8 mM AMP and a Vmax. of 11.1 mumol/min per mg of protein. ATP and ADP were positive allosteric effectors of cardiac AMP deaminase: the apparent Km was decreased to 1.7 mM by 1.0 mM ATP. The enzyme was inhibited by GTP, coformycin, coformycin 5'-phosphate, palmitoyl-CoA, inorganic phosphate compounds, and the metal chelator o-phenanthroline. No inhibition either by product nucleotide (IMP) or by nicotinamide nucleotides was detected when these agents were examined at concentrations up to 2.5 mM. We conclude that this enzyme preparation offers a means by which the kinetic mechanism and regulation of mammalian cardiac AMP deaminase may be directly investigated.