Sensitivity of Na+-coupled D-glucose uptake, Mg2+-ATPase and sucrase to perturbations of the fluidity of brush-border membrane vesicles induced by n-aliphatic alcohols.

The aim of our work is to show the importance of the role of hydrophobic bonds in maintaining Mg2+-ATPase or sucrase activity and Na+-coupled D-glucose uptake normal for the brush border of rat enterocytes. The activity of the two enzymes and the D-glucose uptake were therefore measured under the action of n-aliphatic alcohols and related to the fluidity determined by ESR. Three concentrations were used for the first eight alcohols, those of octanol being about 1500-times lower than those of methanol. For each alcohol the D-glucose uptake and the fluidity were linear functions of the logarithm of the concentration, the linear regressions being practically parallel and equidistant. The concentrations (C) of the eight alcohols inhibiting the D-glucose uptake by 80% were similar to those increasing the membrane fluidity by 3%. The linear relationship which existed in both cases between log 1/C and log P, P being octanol/water partition coefficients of the alcohols, was evidence of great sensitivity to the hydrophobic effect of the alcohols. Only the first alcohols, however, produced any notable inhibition of Mg2+-ATPase and sucrase. Hydrophobic bonds are thus shown to have little influence in maintaining the activity of Mg2+-ATPase and sucrase, but they modulate the Na+-coupled D-glucose uptake.