Farnesol as an inhibitor and substrate for rabbit liver microsomal P450 enzymes

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-291X(02)00178-XGet rights and content

Abstract

Farnesol and the related isoprenoids, geranylgeraniol, geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate, and farnesyl pyrophosphate, are produced in the endoplasmic reticulum of hepatocytes in mammals, and each serve important biological functions. Of these compounds, only farnesol was shown to significantly inhibit rabbit liver microsomal cytochrome P450 enzymes. The observed inhibition appeared to be reversible, and was not strictly competitive, but rather mixed in nature. Of the activities examined, ethoxycoumarin de-ethylase and diclofenac-4-hydroxylase activities were most sensitive to farnesol, with KI and KI values between 11 and 40μM. Caffeine-8-hydroxylation and taxol-6-hydroxylation were not inhibited at all by farnesol. Farnesol appeared to be a P450 substrate, as well as an inhibitor, as indicated by the NADPH-dependent decrease in farnesol concentration in microsomal incubations, and the metabolism was inhibited by CO, which pointed to the involvement of P450 isozymes.

Section snippets

Experimental

The compounds farnesol, geranylgeraniol, farnesyl pyrophosphate, and geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate were purchased from Sigma Chemical, as were the substrates diclofenac, taxol, and p-nitrophenol. The standards, 4-hydroxydiclofenac and 6-hydroxytaxol were purchased from Gentest.

Rabbit livers were purchased from Pel-Freez (Rogers, Arkansas) and rabbit liver microsomes were prepared by a variation of a published protocol [16]. Procedures in the current study were identical to the published ones

Results and discussion

In the presence of farnesol, the p-nitrophenol 3-hydroxylation activity of rabbit liver microsomes was reduced in a concentration-dependent manner (Fig. 1). The inhibition was mixed in nature with KI and KI values of 90 and 115μM, respectively. The inhibition appeared to be reversible as indicated by the fact that pre-incubation of liver microsomes with 80μM farnesol and NADPH had no effect on the resulting p-nitrophenol oxidation activity (data not shown). The value obtained for Km in these

Acknowledgements

The work was supported by a University of North Carolina Institute of Nutrition Grant #980160, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

References (27)

Cited by (0)

View full text