Studies on the glutathione S-transferase activity associated with rat liver mitochondria

The major proportion of rat liver glutathione S-transferase is cytosolic. Carefully washed mitochondria contain 0.25-0.47% of the cytosolic activity. Subfractionation of washed mitochondria using digitonin treatment revealed that glutathione S-transferase release did not parallel that of any of the mitochondrial marker enzymes. Glutathione S-transferase release paralleled that of lactate dehydrogenase, suggesting that these 'mitochondrial' activities are due to loosely bound cytoplasmic forms.