1. Lysosome-rich fractions from rat liver were subjected to several disruptive procedures: osmotic lysis or freezing and thawing in different media, shearing forces in a high-speed blender, treatment with Triton X-100. 2. The soluble and particulate phases were then separated by high-speed centrifugation and assayed for their content of acid phosphatase, fl-galactosidase, f-N-acetylglucosaminidase, acid proteinase, acid ribonuclease, acid deoxyribonuclease and protein. 3. The degree of elution of these hydrolases appeared to depend on both the enzyme species and the treatment. The resulting patterns of solubilization were rather complex, so that a clear-cut discrimination between soluble and structure-bound enzymes could not always be traced. 4. Although only ,-galactosidase was readily solubilizable after all treatments, acid proteinase could also be extensively eluted from the sedimentable material in the presence of EDTA and acid phosphatase was fully extracted by Triton X-100. On the other hand, considerable proportions of the other activities could not be solubilized by any of the procedures used. 5. In other experiments, the adsorbability of hydrolases on subcellular structures was investigated by measuring the partition between sedimentable particles and soluble fraction of solubilized enzymes added to 'intact' liver homogenates. 6. Large proportions of acid proteinase, ribonuclease and deoxyribonuclease, and almost all of f-N-acetylglucosaminidase, were found to be adsorbed on the particulate material.

No abstract

1. The loss of liver protein occurring in rats starved for 24 h was largely prevented by the administration of repeated doses of cycloheximide, an inhibitor of protein synthesis. Similar effects were produced on tubulin, a 'fixed' liver protein. 2. Starvation accelerated, whereas cycloheximide markedly lowered, the rate of protein radioactivity decay after labelling with [3H]valine or [14C]bicarbonate, indicating that changes in catabolic rates played an important role in the above regulations of liver protein mass. 3. The total activity of several lysosomal hydrolases showed little change in livers of starved rats, but a marked progressive decline developed after the administration of cycloheximide, particularly in the activities of cathepsins B, D and L as well as acid ribonuclease. There was no evidence that these changes might be due to endogenous inhibitors (at least for cathepsin B activity, which fell to less than 30% of the control values) or enzyme leakage into the bloodstream; rather, plasma beta-galactosidase and beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase activities fell progressively during the cycloheximide treatment. 4. Endogenous proteolytic rates, measured in vitro by incubating subcellular preparations from livers prelabelled in vivo with [3H]valine, were markedly decreased in cycloheximide-treated animals. 5. The osmotic fragility of hepatic lysosomes, appreciably enhanced in starved animals, after cycloheximide treatment was found to be even lower than in fed controls. 6. The present data are consistent with the view that in starved animals the loss of liver protein is mostly accounted for by increased breakdown, due, in part at least, to enhanced autophagocytosis. 7. Cycloheximide largely counteracted these effects of starvation, altering the liver from being 'poised' in a proteolytic direction to a protein-sparing condition. The present data suggest that, besides suppression of the autophagic processes, a decrease in the lysosomal proteolytic enzyme system may also play a role in this regulation, and they seem to provide further circumstantial evidence for the existence of co-ordinating mechanisms between protein synthesis and degradation.

1. Structure-linked latency, a trait for most lysosome hydrolase activities, is customarily ascribed to the permeability-barrier function performed by the particle-limiting membrane, which shields enzyme sites from externally added substrates. 2. The influence of various substrate concentrations on the reaction rate has been measured for both free (non-latent) and total (completely unmasked by Triton X-100) hydrolase activities in rat liver cell-free preparations. The substrates were: beta-glycerophosphate, phenolphthalein mono-beta-glucuronide. p-nitrophenyl N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminide and p-nitrophenyl beta-D-galactopyranoside. The ratio (free activity/total activity) X 100 is called fractional free activity at any given substrate concentration. 3. The fractional free activity of beta-glucuronidase and beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase were clearly independent of substrate concentration, over the range examined, in both homogenates and lysosome-rich fractions. The fractional free activity of acid phosphatase appeared to be either unaffected (homogenate) or even depressed (lysosome-rich fraction) by increasing the beta-glycerophosphate concentration. The fractional free activity of beta-galactosidase consistently showed a non-linear increase with increasing substrate concentration in both homogenates and lysosome-rich fractions. 4. Procedures such as treatment with digitonin, hypo-osmotic shock and acid autolysis, although effective in causing varying degrees of resolution of the latency of lysosome hydrolase activities, were unable to modify appreciably the pattern of dependence or independence of their fractional free activities on substrate concentration, as compared with that exhibited by control preparations. Ouabain did not affect the free beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase activity of liver homogenates at all. 5. Preincubation of control preparations with beta-glycerophosphate or p-nitrophenyl beta-galactoside did not result in any significant stimulation of the free hydrolytic activity toward these substrates. 6. The results consistently support the view that the membrane of "intact" lysosomes is virtually impermeable to all the substrates tested, except for p-nitrophenyl beta-galactoside, for which the evidence is contradictory. Moreover the progressive unmasking of the hydrolase activities produced by these procedures in vitro reflects the increasing proportion of enzyme sites that are fully accessible to their substrates rather than a graded increase in the permeability of the lysosomal membrane.

Phosphonic (4a,b) and phosphinic (5a-d) analogues of ornithine were synthesized and evaluated for their inhibitory activity against ornithine decarboxylase and against the lymphocytic leukemia P388. The title compounds possess a low degree of inhibition against rat liver ornithine decarboxylase as compared to alpha-(difluoromethyl)ornithine. Thus, compounds 4a and 5a inhibit by 40% the ornithine decarboxylase activity at a 5 mM concentration. The other derivatives are less potent. Compounds 4a, 4b, 5b, and 5d are inactive against P388 tumor in CD2F1 mice at doses of 50 and 150 mg/kg.