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Differing Effects of Arginine Deficiency on the Urea Cycle Enzymes of Rat Liver, Cultured Hepatocytes and Hepatoma Cells¹

Veterans Administration Medical Center and Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202

We have confirmed that arginine-deficient diets increase the liver activities (units per 100 g) of the first four arginine biosynthetic enzymes of the urea cycle in Wistar rats, but not the activity of arginase. In contrast, rat liver cells cultured in monolayers for 48, 72 or 96 h in arginine-free L-15 or minimum essential medium showed no changes in carbamoyl-phosphate synthase (EC 6.3.4.16), ornithine transcarbamylase (EC 2.1.3.3), argininosuccinate synthase (EC 6.3.4.5), argininosuccinase (EC 4.3.2.1) or arginase (EC 3.5.3.1) activities. The arginine content of the cells grown on deficient medium was 36% of that of cells grown on 2.9 mM arginine-sufficient L-15, yet the urea excretion rate into the medium was reduced to 7% of the rate in control cells and the excretion of orotic acid was 400% of that in control cells. A Morris rat hepatoma cell line, 7800C₁, which maintains activities of all five urea cycle enzymes, showed no consistent increases in the activities of the first four enzymes when the arginine in the medium was varied between 0 and 2 mM. Thus, in spite of severe arginine deficiency, cultured rat liver cells and hepatoma cells do not show the derepression-like response seen by other investigators when nonliver cells were cultured in arginine-deficient media. The difference between in vivo and in vitro effects of arginine deficiency on urea cycle activities remains unexplained.

KEY WORDS: • arginine deficiency • cultured liver cells • hepatoma cells

¹ This work was supported by institutional funds of the Veterans Administration and was presented in part at the meetings of the American Society of Biological Chemists, Anaheim, CA, April 1985.

Manuscript received 24 September 1986. Revision accepted 15 July 1987.