Abstract
Pretreatment of rats with cobaltous chloride has been shown previously to reduce the content of cytochrome P-450 in the hepatic microsomal protein. This is accompanied by a corresponding decrease in substrate oxidation, e.g. ethyl morphine demethylation, in vitro. The present paper shows that pretreatment of C57BL/6J Han mice with 40 mg of CoCl2/kg/day for 2 days results in a decrease of cytochrome P-450 to 60% of its original value. This is accompanied by a corresponding decrease in overall rate of [14C]methacetin demethylation as measured by 14CO2 exhalation. However, when 7-[methoxy-14C]coumarin is the substrate, cobalt-pretreated animals exhale twice as much 14CO2 than normal animals. Considering the decrease in cytochrome P-450 (and assuming linear relationship between metabolic activity and cytochrome P-450 content), this observation suggested a 2.5-fold increase in the specific activity of the remaining cytochrome P-450. This was found to be true in vitro. It is concluded that cobalt pretreatment of mice leads to an enhanced in vivo demethylation rate of 7-[methoxy-14C]coumarin which is explained by a considerably higher molecular monooxygenase activity toward this substrate that is found in vitro.
JPET articles become freely available 12 months after publication, and remain freely available for 5 years.Non-open access articles that fall outside this five year window are available only to institutional subscribers and current ASPET members, or through the article purchase feature at the bottom of the page.
|