Purification and characterization of bovine pancreatic bile salt-activated lipase

An enzyme with lipase and esterase activity was purified from bovine pancreas. Furthermore, a non-radioactive lipase assay was developed which is 100 times more sensitive than the conventional methods and allowed the characterization of the lipase activity of the enzyme. The lipase activity increased 42 times in the presence of 10 mM sodium taurocholate, which for the first time provides direct evidence that a bile salt-activated lipase (bp-BAL) was isolated from bovine pancreas. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that the N-terminal amino acid sequence of this lipase/esterase is 88% homologous to human milk BAL and human pancreatic BAL. Staining with various lectins showed that bp-BAL is a glycoprotein which contains fucose residues. Previously from bovine pancreas a lysophospholipase has been purified and a gene was cloned and sequenced encoding an enzyme with cholesterol esterase/lysophospholipase activity. Comparison of the N-terminal amino acid sequence of bp-BAL with the deduced amino acid sequence of the latter revealed that they are identical. Furthermore, the molecular weight of the purified bp-BAL of 63,000, as estimated by SDS-PAGE, is very similar to that of the purified lysophospholipase (65,000) and to the theoretical molecular weight of 65,147 of the cholesterol esterase/lysophospholipase. These data suggest that these three enzymes are one and the same.