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Low activity of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) in liver of Suncus murinus: possible explanation for high sensitivity
S Itoh1, T Matsuyama, T Kamataki
1Division of Drug Metabolism, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences Hokkaido University, Japan.
Abstract:
Suncus murinus (suncus) is an animal species highly sensitive to ethanol (Lin, S.-C., Saito, H., Yohro, T. and Shiga, J.,J. Toxicol. Env. Health, 18: 575-587, 1986). To elucidate the mechanism involved in sensitivity to alcohol, we investigated that properties of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) in the suncus in comparison with the rat. The activities of ALDH in microsomes and mitochondria of suncus livers were lower than those in rat livers, although the activity of cytosolic ADH was not different between the suncus and the rat. We propose that the high sensitivity of the suncus to alcohol can be accounted for, at least in part, by the low activity of ALDH in suncus liver.