Histidase mRNA. Nature of translational products, tissue specificity, and differential development in male and female rat liver.

Histidase is expressed in only two tissues of the rat, liver and epidermis. Hepatic histidase synthesis and catalytic activity undergo complex sex-specific developmental courses. To determine whether changes in functional histidase mRNA levels underlie this developmental pattern, total cellular RNA was translated in a rabbit reticulocyte cell-free lysate system. Adult liver total cellular RNA directed the synthesis of three translational products immunoreactive with anti-native histidase: a polypeptide of Mr = 75,000 (75K), which corresponds to the in vivo synthesized histidase subunit, and two higher molecular weight proteins, a major and a minor peptide of Mr = 150,000 (150K) and 140,000 (140K), respectively. These latter peptides do not seem to be aggregates or dimers of the 75K polypeptide or precursors which are post-translationally hydrolyzed to Mr = 75,000; their origin and function remain to be clarified. In contrast to in vitro translation of hepatic total cellular RNA, Western blot analysis of liver cytosol confirms the presence of only the 75K histidase subunit, with no evidence of anti-histidase immunoreactive peptides of Mr = 140,000-150,000 synthesized in vivo. Quantitation of the radioactivity in the immunocomplexed 75K histidase subunit, translated using total RNA from livers of fetuses, 19-day-old males, 35-day-old males, adult males and females, and adult kidney and brain (0, 0.007, 0.010, 0.016, 0.031, 0, and 0%, respectively, of total released proteins) indicates that, in general, levels of functional histidase subunit mRNA reflected histidase catalytic activity (0, 0.20, 0.50, 1.01, 3.00, 0 and 0 units/g of tissue) during tissue differentiation and sex specific development. The above data indicate that initial expression and subsequent increases in synthesis and activity of histidase during hepatic differentiation, postnatal development, and sex hormone regulation are due to pretranslationally controlled augmentation in the levels of functional mRNA which specifies the histidase subunit. In tissues which do not express histidase no functional histidase mRNA is evident. The levels of the RNA which translate the combined 140-150K histidase-like polypeptides (0, 0.007, 0.014, 0.035, 0.034, 0, and 0% of released proteins) also paralleled the increase in enzymatic activity during tissue differentiation and development; however, no difference between males and females was evident. The significance of these observations awaits elucidation of the nature of these RNA(s).