SPECIES DIFFERENCE AND CHARACTERIZATION OF INTESTINAL ESTERASE ON THE HYDROLIZING ACTIVITY OF -TYPE DRUGS

Michiko INOUE, Masako MORIKAWA, Minoru TSUBOI and Mamoru SUGIURA* Department of Pharmacology, Tokyo College of Pharmacy, Horinouchi, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo 192-03, Japan *Department of Pharmacy , Gifir College of Pharmacy, Mitahorahigashi, Gifu-shi, Gifu 502, Japan

Accepted July 5, 1978

Abstract-The ability of the esterase from intestine was studied for hydrolysis of ester type drugs during absorption. The intestinal esterase is present in the absorption sites in the intestine and hydrolyzes to a large extent during the absorption. In a study of the dietary effect on intestinal esterase, the esterase activity increased in rats fed a high-fat diet, decreased in those fasted or fed a fat-free diet, whereas the esterase activity in the rat treated with phenobarbital showed no marked change. Thus the esterase from intestinal mucosa appears to be characteristically quite different from hepatic esterase. The esterase from human intestine was characterized and compared with esterase from rats, mice, rabbits, guinea pigs and dogs. There was a difference in the substrate specificity of the esterase and there were significant species differences in the electrophoretic behavior of the among the species tested. These results indicate that intestinal esterase from humans differs characteristically from esterases in experimental animals.

Most ester-type drugs are hydrolyzed by esterases bound in the intestinal mucosa and the degree of hydrolysis affects pharmacological activity or toxicity (1-3). There are, however, only a few reports on the properties and characteristics of intestinal esterases (4-5) and apparently no documentation on human intestinal esterease. We reported elsewhere that esterase of intestinal mucosa is quite different from those found in the liver (6). Dietary factors and drug administration may interfere with the intestinal ester-hydrolysis capacity. We describe herein the properties, localization in the intestinal wall, the sub cellular localization and variation of enzyme levels as seen with dietary variations. There is also a species difference in the response to the same drug (7-8). This variability in the drug response makes it difficult to extrapolate the results of animal experiments to humans. Species difference have actually been observed in hepatic drug-metabolizing and intestinal monoxygenase systems (9). In this paper, the esterase from human intestine was characterized and compared with that from several species of animals.

MATERIALS AND METHODS Animals and Tissue Preparation Male albino Wistar rats weighing 200-250 g, male dd-YF mice weighing 20-30 g, male rabbits weighing 2.5-3.0 kg, male Hartley guinea pigs weighing 300-350 g and male mongrel dogs weighing 10-15 kg were used. The small intestine from humans was obtained at autopsy 12 hr after death and when shown to be nonpathologic, this tissue was then frozen, and kept at -40°C until use. Experimental animals were decapitated. Control rats and drug-administrated rats had free access to pelleted rat food (Oriental. Co., Tokyo) and tap water ad libitum. Rats in the experimental group were fed the usual diet for 1 week, after a fat-free diet (0 % oil) or high-fat diet (containing 30 % olive oil, 30 % lard, or 30 % coconut oil), respectively. Fasted rats were those completely deprived of food for 24 hr. Rats in a drug-administrated group were treated with phenobarbital (100 mg/kg) orally for 3 days. The small intestine and pancreas were excised at 4'C. The small intestine was removed after separation of mesenteric tissue and the intestinal content refered to washes with a cold isotonic salt solution in one entire small intestine. Small intestinal mucosa were collected by scraping. Separation of villus tips from crypt cells was done by the method of Weiser (10). Whole small intestine, intestinal mucosa, intestinal content and pancreas were ho mogenized in a Potter-Elvehjem type teflon homogenizer in Tris-mannitol medium; 10 mM Tris-HCl buffer (pH 7.4) containing 0.278 M mannitol at 0°C. The subcellular fractions were obtained according to the method of Takesue and Sato (11).

Assay of Enzyme Activity Esterase activity was determined spectrophotometrically by the methods described previously using a-naphthyl acetate ((9-NA) and phenyl acetate as substrates (12). activity was determined according to the method of Sugiura et al. (13) using olive oil and tributyrin as substrates. Aminopeptidase and alkaline were determined by the method of Louvard et al. (14). Sucrase, succinate-cytochrome C reductase and NADPH-cytochrome C reductase were determined by the methods of Takesue and Sato (11), Stotz (15) and Phillips and Langdon (16), respectively.

Assay of Esterase Activity using Ester-type Drugs as Substrates 1) Acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) as a substrate; One ml of 10 mM substrate solution was preincubated at 37'C for 3 min and I ml of the enzyme solution was added. The reaction was carried out at 37'C for 30 min., then stopped by adding 0.5 ml of 1 N HCI. Salicylic acid thus formed was extracted with 5 ml CHCl3 and determined by the spectro photometric method, at 308 nm. 2) Ethylchlorophenoxyisobutyrate (Clofibrate, CPIB) as a substrate; The reaction mixture containing 0.2 ml of substrate solution (4 mg/ml) and 1.6 nil of 50 mM Tris-HCI buffer (pH 7.5) was preincubated at 37'C for 5 min and 0.2 ml of enzyme solution was added. The enzyme reaction was carried out at 37'C for 10 min. The reaction was stopped by adding 1.0 ml of 6 N HCI. p-Chlorophenoxyisobutylic acid thus formed was determined by the method of Tolman et al. (17). 3) Indanylcarbenicillin (I-CBPC) as a substrate; The reaction mixture containing 0.2 ml of I-CBPC (1 mg/ml) and 0.6 nil of Tris-HCl buffer (pH 7.5) was preincubated at 37'C for 5 min and 0.2 ml of enzyme solution was added. The enzyme reaction was carried out 37'C for 15 min. I-CBPC and the formed carbenicillin (CBPC) were determined by the method of Yamana (personal communication).

Disc Electrophoresis Disc electrophoresis was carried out by the method of Davis (18) using 7.5% poly acrylamide gel at pH 9.4. Enzyme activity on polyacrylamide gel was stained with 13-NA Fast Blue B (salt).

Assay of Protein The protein concentration was measured by the method of Lowry (19) with bovine serum albumin as a standard.

RESULTS Hydrolysis Rate of Ester-type Drug by Intestinal Esterase To demonstrate the ability of intestinal esterase to hydrolyze ester-type drugs, the absorption of l-CBPC was examined by the everted sac method using rat intestine in vitro. The results are shown in Fig. 1. The absorbed amount of ester-type drug (I-CBPC) was 3 times that of the non-ester-type drug (CBPC). When I-CBPC was placed in a solution on the mucosal side, I-CBPC was not detected in the solution on the serosal side. The rate of hydrolysis of several was determined by using homogenate of whole intestine, intestinal mucosa, intestinal contents and pancreas from rats. The rates of hydrolysis by the above homogenates were expressed as the ratios relative to that obtained from the whole intestine. The results are shown in Table 1. Ester-type drugs such as aspirin, I-CBPC and CPIB were rapidly hydrolyzed by the intestinal mucosal homogenate, and phenyl acetate and olive oil were rapidly hydrolyzed by pancreatic lipase. The esterase

FIG. 1. Absorption of indanyl carbenicallin (I-CBPC) and carbenicillin (CBPC) through everted rat intestine. Initial mucosal concentration of I-CBPC or CBPC: 2 ltmoles;ml. Each value was expressed as the mean of 3 experiments. A: I-CBPC was administrated, B: CBPC was administrated. -0 I-CBPC con centration, CBPC concentration. The rate of hydrolysis with these homogenats was expressed as the relative rate to that obtained from the whole intestine. a) p-NA : (3-naphtyl acetate b) PA : phenyl acetate c) TG: olive oil d) I-CBPC: indanyl carbenicillin e) CPIB: clofibrate.

TABLE 2. Localization of esterase and other enzymes in the villus tip cells from rat

The villus tip and crypt cells were obtained as described by Weiser1 ). Nine esparate fractions were obtained by incubation of the intestine: the first three pooled fractions correspond to the villus tip cells fraction and last one to the crypt cells fraction. All activities are expressed in n moles/ml/mg protein and represent the mean of four separate experiments. activity of the intestinal mucosa was found to be higher than that of other tissues.

Localization along the Villi Intestinal cells from rats were separated by the method of Weiser (10). The decreasing gradient of the lower slope from the crypt cells does exist for the esterase against 19-NA (approximately 2-fold). Thus, some enrichment of the enzyme seems to occur during differentiation of crypt cells to mature villus cells. The results are shown in Table 2.

Subcellular Localization of Esterase The activities of marker enzymes and esterase were determined in six subcellular fractions obtained from the mucosal cells of rat intestine. The results are shown in Fig. 2. The relative specific activities were calculated and plotted according to the method of de Duve et al. (20). Clearly, NADPH-cytochrome C reductase was found to have the highest relative specific activity in the endoplasmic reticulum fraction, as was also the case with the esterase determined by using Q-NA and aspirin as substrates.

Effect of Diet on Esterase Activity Under various conditions, esterase activities of intestinal mucosa from rat were deter mined using several esters as substrates. The results are shown in Fig. 3. The esterase activities decreased markedly in fasted rats and those fed a fat-free diet, while there were no changes in the disc electrophoretic pattern and specific activities. In rats fed a high-fat diet, the esterase activities increased significantly although there was no change in the disc FiG. 2. Distribution of enzymes in subcellular fractions of rat intestinal mucosa . The ordinates indicate mean relative specific activities per protein of the isolated subcellular fractions. The subcellular fractions (I: 800 x g 1 min, II : 800 x g 10 min, III: 4000 x g 10 min, IV: 10000 x g 30 min, V : 105000 x g 60 min, VI: supernatant) are represented in abscissae by their mean relative protein contents in the order in which they were isolated (from left to right). a) Sucrase, b) Suc cinate cytochrome c reductase, c) d) NADPH-cytochrome c reductase, e) Esterase (~-naphtyl acetate), f) Esterase (aspirin).

FIG. 3. Effect of fasted, high-fat diet and fat-free diet on esterase and lipase activities from rat intestinal mucosa. Results are expressed as percent of control value . A: Fasted 24 hr, B: Phenobarbital 100 mg/kg; day p.o. 3 days, C: Fat-free diet 7 days, D : 30% Fat-diet 7 days, *Difference from control statistically significant (p<0.05: n=6. = (I-Naphtyl acetate, ,r 1 Tributyrin, ] Olive oil, Aspirin, x x Indanyl carbenicillin, _oo Clofibrate. electrophoretic pattern. This increase in esterase activity was observed, for all the oils used. In rats treated with phenobarbital, intestinal esterase activity was not affected.

Species Difference on Intestinal Esterase Species difference was determined by measuring the esterase activity using homogenate of intestinal mucosa of human and experimental animals. The results of esterase activity using disc electrophoresis are shown in Fig. 4. In the tissue from humans, the intestinal esterase gave only a single active band. In rabbits, the intestinal esterase gave two active bands and the main active band had a relative mobility similar to that seen with the sample from humans. Another band was weak and had a slow relative mobility. On the other hand, in rats and mice, the intestinal esterase

FIG. 4. Disc electrophretic pattern of esterase activity from human, rat, mouse, guinea pig and rabbit intestine 200 fig of protein were applied to each gel. 7.5 polyacrylamide gel was used and the disc electrophoresis was carried out at 4 for 70 min. Staining was carried out using 3-naphtyl acetate-Fast Blue B.

FIG. 5. Species difference of esterase and lipase activites from human, rat, mouse, guinea pig, rabbit and dog. The enzyme activity was measured with mucosal homogenate from the small intestine. Other conditions are described in materials and methods. gave three active bands. In guinea pigs, a zymogram of the intestinal esterase differed from that seen in the other species. Esterase activity in the dog was weak and gave no appreciable active band. For the 6 species, the esterase activity was determined by using several esters as substrates. The results are shown in Fig. 5. There was a difference in the substrate specificity of the intestinal esterase from the mice which hydrolyzed the esters better than did the other species. The esterase activity from dog intestine using several esters as substrates was weak. This is in good agreement with the results obtained by Ecobichon (21) in which intestinal esterase activity from dog was lowest among different species.

DISCUSSION Ester-type drugs are more readily absorbed from the small intestine. In oral admin istration, ester-type drugs are hydrolyzed to the corresponding non-ester type drugs and only part of the intact drug reaches the circulation fluids and tissue (1-3, 22). In the present work, I-CBPC (ester-type drug) was more readily absorbed than CBPC (non-ester-type drug) from the everted rat intestine. When I-CBPC was placed in a solution on the mucosal side, I-CBPC could not be detected in the solution on the serosal side. This result suggests that intestinal esterases are present in the intestinal wall and hydrolyze ester type drugs to a large extent during the absorption process. The esterase activity of intestinal mucosa was higher than that of other parts of the intestine when ester-type drugs were used as substrates. The esterase activity was found to be higher in the villus tip than in the crypt cells. The majority of intestinal esterase was present in the absorption sites of the intestine. The esterase activity increased in the rat fed a high-fat diet, decreased in the fasted rats or those fed a fat-free diet, whereas the esterase activity in the rat treated with phenobarbital did not show any marked change (6). These results indicate that the esterase from intestinal mucosa is characteristically quite different from hepatic esterase (23). There are species differences in hepatic drug-metabolizing enzymes (7) and intestinal glucuronidation systems (9). We found the esterase from human intestinal mucosa to be characteristic compared with esterase from experimental animals such as rats, mice, guinea pigs and dogs. There was a difference in the substrate specificity of the esterase between tissues from humans and experimental animals. Furthermore, there were significant differences in electrophoretic and chromatographic behavior of the esterase among the species tested. 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