Lipoprotein lipase of cultured mesenchymal rat heart cells. I. Synthesis, secretion and releasability by heparin.

Cell suspensions prepared from rat hearts were separated by replating into F1, F2 and M cultures, and cultured for 3--11 days. Lipoprotein lipase activity was highest in the F1 cultures which consisted mainly of non-beating, mesenchymal cells. The enzyme activity was released into the medium only after addition of heparin. The release occurred by an initial rapid phase and a continuous slow phase. Both the rapid and the slow release of enzyme activity by heparin were inhibited by about 70% after a 4 h pretreatment with colchicine. Thus, it seems that the vesicular transport is responsible for the translocation of lipoprotein lipase to the cell surface also during the slow process of release. The residual activity in the colchicine treated cultures was higher than in the controls indicating that no inhibition of enzyme synthesis occurred. The slow phase of enzyme release continued also after removal of heparin from the medium but was reduced markedly when protein synthesis was inhibited by cycloheximide. Thus the increase in total enzyme activity encountered after exposure to heparin resulted from stimulation of new enzyme synthesis. The half-time of lipoprotein lipase in the F1 cultures was 35 min and full restoration of enzyme activity was found 60 min after complete removal of cycloheximide from the system. These data indicate that the culture system can be used to study regulation of new enzyme synthesis and its turnover.