Triacylglycerol metabolism in the phenobarbital-treated rat

1. Various aspects of triacylglycerol metabolism were compared in rats given phenobarbital at a dose of 100mg/kg body wt. per day by intraperitoneal injection; controls were injected with an equal volume of 0.15m-NaCl by the same route. Animals were killed after 5 days of treatment. 2. Rats injected with phenobarbital demonstrated increased liver weight, and increased microsomal protein per g of liver. Other evidence of microsomal enzyme induction was provided by increased activity of aminopyrine N-demethylase and cytochrome P-450 content. Increased hepatic activity of gamma-glutamyltransferase (EC 2.3.2.2) occurred in male rats, but not in females, and was not accompanied by any detectable change in the activity of this enzyme in serum. 3. Phenobarbital treatment increased the hepatic content of triacylglycerol after 5 days in starved male and female rats, as well as in non-starved male rats; non-starved females were not tested in this regard. At 5 days after withdrawal of the drug, there was no difference in hepatic triacylglycerol content or in hepatic functions of microsomal enzyme induction between the treated and control rats. 4. After 5 days, phenobarbital increased the synthesis in vitro of glycerolipids in cell-free liver fractions fortified with optimal concentrations of substrates and co-substrates when results were expressed per whole liver. The drug caused a significant increment in the activity of hepatic diacylglycerol acyltransferase (EC 2.3.1.20), but did not affect the activity per liver of phosphatidate phosphohydrolase (EC 3.1.3.4) in cytosolic or washed microsomal fractions. A remarkable sex-dependent difference was observed for this latter enzyme. In female rats, the activity of the microsomal enzyme per liver was 10-fold greater than that of the cytosolic enzyme, whereas in males, the activities of phosphohydrolases per liver from both subcellular fractions were similar. 5. The phenobarbital-mediated increase in hepatic triacylglycerol content could not be explained by a decrease in the hepatic triacylglycerol secretion rate as measured by the Triton WR1339 technique. Since the hepatic triacylglycerol showed significant correlation with microsomal enzyme induction functions, with hepatic glycerolipid synthesis in vitro and with diacylglycerol acyltransferase activity, it is likely to be due to enhanced triacylglycerol synthesis consequent on hepatic microsomal enzyme induction. 6. In contrast with rabbits and guinea pigs, rats injected with phenobarbital showed a decrease in serum triacylglycerol concentration in the starved state; this decrease persisted for up to 5 days after drug administration stopped, and did not occur in non-starved animals. It seems to be independent of the microsomal enzyme-inducing properties of the drug, and may be due to the action of phenobarbital at an extrahepatic site.