Phenobarbital causes a multitude of effects in hepatocytes, including increased cell proliferation, inhibition of apoptosis and upregulation of xenobiotic and endobiotic metabolizing enzymes. In this study, the involvement of several protein kinase and phosphatase pathways on constitutive and phenobarbital-induced activities of CYP2A5, CYP2B10 and CYP1A1/2 in primary mouse hepatocytes was determined using welldefined chemical modulators of intracellular protein phosphorylation and desphosphorylation events. A 48-h treatment of the hepatocytes with 2-aminopurine, a nonspecific serine/threonine kinase inhibitor, elicited dose-dependent increases in both basal and phenobarbital-induced CYP2A5 catalytic activity (assayed as coumarin 7-hydroxylation), the maximal induction being 60-fold greater than the control value upon cotreatment with 1.5 mm phenobarbital and 10 mm 2-aminopurine. In contrast, phenobarbital induction of CYP2B10 (pentoxyresorufin O-deethylase) and CYP1A1/2 (ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase) activities were blocked by 2-aminopurine. Increases in CYP2A5 activity were also observed after exposure of the hepatocytes to other protein kinase inhibitors affecting the cell cycle, i.e. roscovitine, K-252a and rapamycin. Inhibitors of protein kinases A and C, as well as tyrosine kinases, did not appreciably affect CYP2A5 activity levels. The serine/threonine phosphatase inhibitors tautomycin, calyculin A and okadaic acid all reduced both basal and phenobarbital-induced CYP2A5, CYP2B10 and CYP1A1/2 activities. These results further strengthen the concept that hepatic CYP2A5 is regulated in a unique way compared with CYP2B10 and CYP1A.Keywords: CYP induction; phosphorylation; primary hepatocytes. Phenobarbital (PB), a drug that has been widely used in the treatment of epilepsy, elicits pleiotropic morphological and biochemical effects in the liver, including an increase in hepatocyte proliferation, inhibition of apoptosis, an increase in liver weight and the induction of several genes encoding enzymes involved in the metabolism of xenobiotics and endobiotics. PB is also an efficient tumor promoter in the liver [1]. A recent study showed that <30 genes are modulated by PB in the chick embryo liver, 60% of them being upregulated and 40% being downregulated [2]. One of the most striking effects of PB is the induction of cytochrome P450 (CYP) genes that encode enzymes involved in the metabolism of numerous xenobiotics and endogenous compounds [3]. The expression of several individual CYP genes in the liver, including members on the CYP1A, CYP2A, CYP2B, CYP2C and CYP3A subfamilies, is elevated by PB [4].The CYP2A5 enzyme and its human orthologue CYP2A6 metabolize a number of substrates of practical relevance. CYP2A5/6 substrates include several pharmaceuticals, such as coumarin, halothane and losigamone, as well as several toxins, such as nitrosamines, aflatoxins and nicotine [5]. CYP2A5 expression is increased in the mouse liver by a number of structurally varying compounds, including PB, pyrazole and porphyrinogenic ...

All cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes contain heme as a prosthetic group. In contrast to other CYP enzymes, murine CYP 2 A 5 is upregulated in vivo by several agents that disturb cellular heme balance. To test the hypothesis that porphyrinogenic agents have the common feature of being able to increase CYP 2 A 5 expression, mouse liver primary hepatocytes were exposed to various porphyrinogenic chemicals and changes in CYP 2 A 5 catalytic activity and levels of mRNA were monitored. Phenobarbital increased hepatic CYP 2 A 5-mediated coumarin 7-hydroxylase (COH) activity (13.2-fold) and the amount of CYP 2 A 5 steady-state mRNA (10.6-fold). Hepatocyte COH activity was increased also by the ferrochelatase inhibitor griseofulvin and the protoporphyrinogen oxidase inhibitor acifluorfen (about 9-fold induction). Of these inducers, only phenobarbital affected CYP 1 A 12 and CYP 2 B 10 expression. In contrast, many other porphyrinogenic agents such as cobalt, 2,2,4-trimethyl-1,2-dihydroquinoline (TMDQ), 1-[4-(3-acetyl-2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)-2,6-cyclohexanedionyl]-O-eth yl propionaldehyde oxime (ATMP), aminotriazole, and thioacetamide either decreased or had no effect on CYP 2 A 5. The increases in COH activity and CYP 2 A 5 mRNA were unaffected by combined treatment with the inducers and heme arginate, suggesting that heme is not a regulator of CYP 2 A 5 induction. Treatment with actinomycin D totally abolished both constitutive CYP 2 A 5 expression and its inducibility, suggesting that a transcriptional component is involved. These data suggest that, in mouse primary hepatocytes, CYP 2 A 5 induction is not a universal response to disturbed cellular heme biosynthesis.