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Research Communication

Serum Aminopeptidase A Activity of Mice Is Related to Dietary Fat Saturation

Garbiñe Arechaga, José M. Martínez, Isabel Prieto, María J. Ramírez, María J. Sánchez, Francisco Alba^*, Marc De Gasparo and Manuel Ramírez¹

Unit of Physiology, University of Jaén, 23071 Jaén, Spain; ^* Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Medical School, University of Granada, Granada, Spain; and Novartis Pharma, CH-4002, Basel, Switzerland

¹To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: msanchez{at}ujaen.es.

A high intake of monounsaturated fat has been proposed to be a dietary factor that can decrease the incidence of cardiovascular disease and hypertension. In addition, increasing dietary fat saturation has been shown to increase plasma total cholesterol and elevate systolic and diastolic blood pressures. We demonstrated previously that cholesterol selectively increases in vitro aminopeptidase A activity, which is related to angiotensin metabolism. In this study, we investigated the effect of different degrees of dietary fatty acid saturation on serum aminopeptidase activities in vivo. Serum total cholesterol concentrations were also measured. Five groups of male Balb/C mice were fed for 10 wk diets containing 2.4 g/100 g of sunflower oil, fish oil, olive oil, lard or coconut oil. We measured alanyl-, arginyl-, cystinyl-, pyroglutamyl-, aspartyl- and glutamyl-specific aminopeptidase activities using arylamides as substrates. Serum total cholesterol levels were higher in mice fed diets containing saturated oils (lard and coconut) than in those consuming sunflower oil, which is unsaturated. Two of the serum aminopeptidase A activities (aspartyl and glutamyl aminopeptidase) increased progressively with the degree of saturation of the dietary fatty acids; activities were significantly greater in mice fed coconut oil than in those fed sunflower or fish oil. Therefore, the substrates hydrolyzed by this activity as well as their functions may be similarly affected. These results may have some implication for the treatment of cardiovascular disease.

KEY WORDS: • aminopeptidases • dietary fat saturation • cholesterol • mice