Hydrolysis of succinic acid dimethyl ester in rat pancreatic islets

The hydrolysis of the dimethyl ester of [1,4-14C]succinic acid and/or [2,3-14C]succinic acid was measured in homogenates of rat pancreatic islets, liver, jejunum, brain, BC3H1 mouse myocytes, NG108-19 mouse neuroblastoma x rat glioma hybrid cells, and Caco-2 human colon adenocarcinoma cells. The specific activity of the enzyme was much higher in liver, jejunum, and Caco-2 cells than in the other cell types. The affinity of the enzyme for succinic acid dimethyl ester (SAD) was also much higher in liver than in islet homogenates. In the latter case, both particulate and cytosolic activity were observed upon subcellular fractionation. The activity found in islet homogenates was commensurate with the rate of SAD hydrolysis in intact cells. While the intracellular pool of acidic metabolites generated from SAD remained fairly stable over a 15- to 120-min incubation and was mainly located in the cytosolic compartment, the amount of acidic metabolites released in the extracellular milieu progressively increased with the length of incubation. Such metabolites included both monocarboxylic and dicarboxylic acids, the latter consisting mainly of succinic acid and, to a much lesser extent, of fumaric acid and malic acid. However, at variance with SAD, succinic acid failed to be taken up by intact islets. There was no close parallelism between the specific activity of the SAD esterase and the extent of SAD utilization in distinct cell types.