Incorporation of the 1-pro-R and the 1-pro-S hydrogen atoms of ethanol into steroids and phosphatidylcholines in vivo.

The transfer of deuterium from chiral 1-monodeuteroethanols to various metabolites formed in the liver was studied in order to investigate the coupling of metabolic reductions to the alcohol dehydrogenase and the aldehyde dehydrogenase reactions. The ethanols were administered to female bile fistula rats for 10 h. The hydrogen at C-2 in the glycerol moiety of newly formed phosphatidylcholine molecules in bile, liver and plasma was derived to 22-25% from the 1-pro-R position and to 5-6% from the 1-pro-S position in the ethanol. sn-Glycerol 3-phosphate isolated from liver had a lower deuterium content at C-2. The ratio between the contributions from the two positions in ethanol to C-2 of free sn-glycerol 3-phosphate was the same as in the phosphatidylcholines. This indicates that the higher degree of labelling of this position in phosphatidylcholines is not due to a specific coupling between alcohol dehydrogenase and the formation of a phosphatidylcholine precursor. Cholesterol and chenodeoxycholic acid in bile became increasingly labelled, and the ratio between the incorporations from the 1-pro-S and the 1-pro-R positions of ethanol was about 0.37 in cholesterol and 0.46 in chenodeoxycholic acid. Thus, these NADPH-dependent reactions utilized hydrogen from the 1-pro-S position to a larger extent than NADH-dependent reactions.