Studies on the latency of rat liver fumarate hydratase.

A hypotonic medium and nonionic detergents Triton X-100 and digitonin have no influence on the activity of fumarase in the homogenate or in the mitochondrial fraction either. Ionic detergents of deoxycholate, cholate and sodium dodecyl sulphate exert an inhibiting influence. The activity of enzyme was determined in an L-malate-fumarate system. 1 h of incubation and the original Racker's method gave similar results. The lack of 'latency', found for the mitochondrial fumarase, was discussed basing on the data concerned with the penetration of metabolites through the inner mitochondrial membrane.