Changes in aldehyde dehydrogenase occurring during rat hepatocarcinogenesis induced by ethionine combined with dietary choline deficiency.

Chronic exposure to ethionine (0.05%) combined with dietary choline deficiency was used to study changes in aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity during hepatocarcinogenesis in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Over a period of 43 weeks, animals were sacrificed at intervals and the ALDH phenotype of normal liver and any lesions was characterized by histochemical analysis, total activity assays, and gel electrophoresis, using propionaldehyde and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) to detect normal liver ALDH activity and benzaldehyde and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP+) for tumor-associated ALDH. In animals receiving ethionine plus choline deficiency, significant changes in ALDH were observed histochemically by 9 weeks, when there was a distinct shift in activity from its normal centrilobular pattern to a periportal distribution. The first NAD+- and NADP+-dependent ALDH-positive enzyme-altered foci were also seen at 9 weeks. There was no correlation between the ALDH and gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase phenotypes of an individual focus. Areas of cholangiofibrosis, cystic degeneration, and bile duct proliferation were distinctly ALDH negative. No significant changes in benzaldehyde and NADP+ ALDH activity were detectable by total activity assays or gel electrophoresis prior to the appearance of overt neoplasms at 26 weeks. No significant changes in ALDH activity occurred in animals receiving either ethionine or choline deficient diet alone. By histochemistry, total activity assays and gel electrophoresis, only 7 of the 28 (25%) of the hepatic neoplasms examined expressed the tumor-associated ALDH phenotype. An additional five neoplasms had barely detectable levels of benzaldehyde and NADP+ ALDH activity. These results are in striking contrast to changes in ALDH activity occurring during hepatocarcinogenesis induced by other protocols we have tested previously in which from 50 to 96% of all neoplasms were ALDH positive.