Determination of enzyme activity by chromatography and videodensitometry. I. Microassay of amino acid transforming enzymes in human tissue homogenates.

A chromatographic-videodensitometric assay was found to be appropriate for measuring the activity of glutamate dehydrogenase, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, ornithine-2-oxoacid aminotransferase and histidine ammonia-lyase in human tissue homogenates. From the assay mixtures containing substrate(s), cofactor(s), buffer and tissue extract, five or ten microliters samples were taken at different time intervals and chromatographed on Dowex 50 X 8 type resin-coated chromatosheets. On each chromatoplate 50 nmoles of the amino acid to be measured were separately run as a reference for videodensitometric evaluation. By comparing the density of the reference amino acid to that of the individual samples the molar amount of amino acids formed or consumed in the reaction could be calculated. The present findings suggest that the chromatographic-videodensitometric microassay (CV-technique) is suitable for measuring the activity of amino acid transforming enzymes in minute amounts of tissue extracts.