The effect of intralysosomal sucrose storage on the turnover of hamster fibroblast lysosomal and Golgi-apparatus enzymes

Abstract

1. The effect of overloading of hamster fibroblast lysosomes with sucrose on the turnover of lysosomal and Golgi-apparatus enzymes was studied. Arylsulphatase B and UDP-galactose-N-acetylglucosamine galactosyltransferase were chosen as appropriate marker enzymes. The relative contributions of changes in the rates of synthesis and degradation to the increased activities of these enzymes after uptake of sucrose were examined by isotopic-labelling experiments. The effects of sucrose uptake on the degradation of total cellular protein and of the cytoplasmic enzyme, alkaline ribonuclease, were determined for comparative purposes. 2. The rates of enzyme synthesis in the presence and absence of sucrose were compared by pulse-labelling the cells with 14C-labelled amino acids, followed by isolation of purified enzymes and determination of their radioactivity. Sucrose uptake produced increases of 270% and 90% respectively in the rates of synthesis of arylsulphatase B and galactosyltransferase, whereas the rate of synthesis of alkaline ribonuclease was not affected. 3. The rates of degration of the enzymes were estimated by measuring the decay with time of the radioactivity of purified enzymes from prelabelled cells. In the absence of sucrose, the apparent half-lives of arylsulphatase B and galactosyltransferase were about 30 days and 40h respectively. After uptake of sucrose, the half-life of arylsulphatase B decreased to about 10 days and that of galactosyltransferase to 10h. Neither the half-life of alkaline ribonuclease (4 days) nor the rate of degradation of total cellular protein was affected by the uptake of sucrose. 4. These results indicate that the hyperactivity of lysosmal and Golgi-apparatus enzymes after the uptake of sucrose is accompanied by increases in the rates of both synthesis and degradation, and that the increased rates of degradation are insufficient to prevent accumulation of the excess of enzymes synthesized; also that the effects of sucrose uptake are restricted to the vacuolar apparatus.