scholarly journals The role of substrate supply in the regulation of cholesterol biosynthesis in rat hepatocytes

1983 ◽  
Vol 210 (3) ◽  
pp. 625-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
C R Pullinger ◽  
G F Gibbons

1. Compactin, (-)-hydroxycitrate and dexamethasone gave rise to a decrease in the rate of cholesterol production in hepatocytes from fed rats by interfering with the flow of substrate into the sterol biosynthetic pathway. The cells responded to the deficit of biosynthetic sterol by increasing the activity of hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMG-CoA reductase). 2. Compactin and (-)-hydroxycitrate gave similar results in hepatocytes from rats starved for 24 h but in this case dexamethasone had no significant effect. 3. Exogenous oleate interferes with the production of carbohydrate-derived acetyl-CoA and also gives rise initially to opposing effects on the rate of sterol synthesis and HMG-CoA reductase activity. Over a longer period, however, oleate itself was capable of replacing carbohydrate as the major source of carbon for sterol synthesis. 4. The increase in HMG-CoA reductase activity observed when liver cells were incubated in the presence of compactin, (-)-hydroxycitrate or oleate could be partially reversed by the simultaneous presence of glucagon. 5. Under some physiological conditions, a deficiency of biosynthetic cholesterol or of a related precursor may lead to an increase in the activity of HMG-CoA reductase.

1984 ◽  
Vol 219 (2) ◽  
pp. 461-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
D D Patel ◽  
C R Pullinger ◽  
B L Knight

The true rate of cholesterogenesis in cultured monocyte-macrophages was determined from the incorporation of [2-14C]acetate into cholesterol, using the desmosterol (cholesta-5,24-dien-3 beta-ol) that accumulated in the presence of the drug triparanol to estimate the specific radioactivity of the newly formed sterols. It was shown that this procedure could be successfully adapted for use with cultured monocytes despite the accumulation of other unidentified biosynthetic intermediates. In cells maintained in 20% (v/v) whole serum approx. 25% of the sterol carbon was derived from exogenous acetate. Cholesterol synthesis was as high in normal cells as in cells from homozygous familial hypercholesterolaemic (FH) subjects and accounted for 50% of the increase in cellular cholesterol. The addition of extra low-density lipoprotein (LDL) reduced cholesterol synthesis, apparently through a decrease in the activity of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMG-CoA reductase). When incubated in lipoprotein-deficient serum some cells did not survive, but those that remained showed a normal increase in protein content; the amount of cellular protein and cholesterol in each well did not increase and cholesterol synthesis was reduced by over 80%. HMG-CoA reductase activity fell less dramatically and the proportion of sterol carbon derived from exogenous acetate increased, suggesting that the low rate of cholesterogenesis with lipoprotein-deficient serum was due to a shortage of substrate. The results indicate that under normal conditions monocyte-macrophages obtain cholesterol from endogenous synthesis rather than through receptor-mediated uptake of LDL, and that synthesis together with non-saturable uptake of LDL provides the majority of the cholesterol required to support growth.


1991 ◽  
Vol 273 (2) ◽  
pp. 485-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
V A Zammit ◽  
A M Caldwell

The roles of protein kinase C, Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase and AMP-activated protein kinase in the phosphorylation of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase induced by Ca2(+)-mobilizing conditions in isolated hepatocytes were investigated. Only partial evidence for the involvement of AMP-activated kinase was found. Antagonism of calmodulin action prolonged the decrease in expressed/total activity ratio induced by vasopressin plus glucagon. Protease inhibitors active against Ca2(+)-dependent cytosolic proteases or lysosomal proteolysis did not attenuate the loss of total HMG-CoA reductase induced by glucagon plus vasopressin, but calmodulin antagonists largely prevented this effect.


1989 ◽  
Vol 264 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Iglesias ◽  
G F Gibbons

The involvement of oxygenated cholesterol precursors in the regulation of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase activity was studied by examining the effect of ketoconazole on the metabolism of mevalonic acid, lanosterol and the lanosterol metabolites, lanost-8-ene-3 beta,32-diol,3 beta-hydroxylanost-8-en-32-al and 4,4-dimethylcholesta-8,14-dien-3 beta-ol, in liver subcellular fractions and hepatocyte cultures. Inhibition of cholesterol synthesis from mevalonate by ketoconazole at concentrations up to 30 microM was due exclusively to a suppression of cytochrome P-450LDM (LDM = lanosterol demethylase) activity, resulting in a decreased rate of lanosterol 14 alpha-demethylation. No enzyme after the 14 alpha-demethylase step was affected. When [14C]mevalonate was the cholesterol precursor, inhibition of cytochrome P450LDM was accompanied by the accumulation of several labelled oxygenated sterols, quantitatively the most important of which was the C-32 aldehyde derivative of lanosterol. There was no accumulation of the 24,25-oxide derivative of lanosterol, nor of the C-32 alcohol. Under these conditions the activity of HMG-CoA reductase declined. The C-32 aldehyde accumulated to a far greater extent when lanost-8-ene-3 beta,32-diol rather than mevalonate was used as the cholesterol precursor in the presence of ketoconazole. With both precursors, this accumulation was reversed at higher concentrations of ketoconazole in liver subcellular fractions. A similar reversal was not observed in hepatocyte cultures.


1987 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail A. Wong ◽  
James D. Bergstrom ◽  
John Edmond

The activity of acetoacetyl-CoA (AcAc-CoA) ligase (E.C.6.2.1.16) in hepatocytes from rats was shown to be the same as the activity in homogenates of their livers. In hepatocytes treated with 25-hydroxycholesterol, AcAc-CoA ligase, 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase and rates of sterol synthesis were substantially decreased. Hepatocytes treated with high density lipoprotein (HDL) exhibited a 2 to 4 fold induction of HMG-CoA reductase activity; however an accompanying increase in AcAc-CoA ligase activity and the rate of cholesterol synthesis was not observed. We conclude (a) that increases in the activity of HMG-CoA reductase when mediated by HDL in hepatocytes do not result in a corresponding change in the capacity for sterol synthesis and (b) that changes in the activity state of HMG-CoA reductase can be dissociated from that of AcAc-CoA ligase.


1987 ◽  
Vol 248 (3) ◽  
pp. 993-996 ◽  
Author(s):  
R A Easom ◽  
V A Zammit

1. The expressed and total (completely dephosphorylated) activities of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase were measured in microsomal fractions isolated from cold-clamped liver samples from female rats in various stages of the reproductive cycle. 2. There was little change in total HMG-CoA reductase activity during pregnancy and early lactation, but after 2 days post partum there was a marked increase in total activity. 3. The expressed/total activity ratio of HMG-CoA reductase showed a profound decrease during the last 2 days of pregnancy. The fraction of the enzyme in the active form increased progressively during the first 2 days of lactation. 4. The combined effect of these changes was that the expressed activity of HMG-CoA reductase changed in parallel with the known changes in the hepatic rate of cholesterogenesis during pregnancy and lactation in vivo.


1986 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 875-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
G A Keller ◽  
M Pazirandeh ◽  
S Krisans

3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase, a key regulatory enzyme involved in cholesterol biosynthesis, has recently been reported to be present in rat liver peroxisomes (Keller, G.A., M.C. Barton, D.J. Shapiro, and S.J. Singer, 1985, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 82:770-774). Immunoelectron labeling of ultrathin frozen sections of normal liver, using two monoclonal antibodies to purified rat liver microsomal HMG-CoA reductase, indicated that the enzyme is present in the matrix of peroxisomes. This study is a quantitative biochemical and immunoelectron microscopical analysis of HMG-CoA reductase in rat liver peroxisomes and microsomes of normal and cholestyramine-treated animals. Cholestyramine treatment produced a six- to sevenfold increase in the specific activity of peroxisomal HMG-CoA reductase, whereas the microsomal HMG-CoA reductase specific activity increased by about twofold. Using a computer program that calculates optimal linear combinations of marker enzymes, it was determined that between 20 and 30% of the total reductase activity was located in the peroxisomes of cholestyramine-treated animals. Less than 5% of the reductase activity was present in peroxisomes under control conditions. Quantitation of the immunoelectron microscopical data was in excellent agreement with the biochemical results. After cholestyramine treatment there was an eightfold increase in the density of gold particles per peroxisome, and we estimate about a threefold increase in the labeling of the ER.


1988 ◽  
Vol 256 (3) ◽  
pp. 829-834 ◽  
Author(s):  
M F Corio-Costet ◽  
N Gerst ◽  
P Benveniste ◽  
F Schuber

Fenpropimorph (N-[3-(p-t-butylphenyl)-2-methylpropyl]-cis-2,6-dimethylmorpholine), a morpholine fungicide known to be an inhibitor of sterol biosynthesis in fungi and in higher plants, was demonstrated to be an efficient inhibitor of cholesterol biosynthesis in cultured Swiss 3T3 fibroblasts. Treatment of the mammalian cells with fenpropimorph resulted in a dose-dependent inhibition of [14C]acetate incorporation into the C27 sterols [IC50 (concentration causing half-maximal inhibition) = 0.5 microM], which was accompanied by an accumulation of polar sterols and a decrease in cellular hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA reductase activity. Exposure of the cells to the drug affected cell growth. Analysis of the sterols in the growth-arrested and in the pulse-labelled cells indicate that fenpropimorph has, in the sterol-biosynthetic pathway, target enzymes in mammalian cells different from those in the other phyla. Whereas in plants and fungi fenpropimorph mainly affects sterol isomerases and reductases, in the fibroblasts its main target seems to be the demethylation of lanosterol.


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