Determination of serum aminotransferases: activation by pyridoxal-5'-phosphate in relation to substrate concentration.

To investigate the activation of aspartate- and alanine aminotransferases by pyridoxal-5'-phosphate, we determined the enzymatic activity in serum in two different ways: (a) Preincubation of the serum alone or the serum with pyridoxal-5'-phosphate and starting the reaction by the addition of the serum sample or the serum sample + coenzyme, respectively. (b) Preincubation of the serum or the serum with pyridoxal-5'-phosphate in the reaction medium and starting the reaction by adding 2-oxoglutarate. There are only small differences in activities of both aminotransferases determined according to these two different methods. The stimulation by pyridoxal-5'-phosphate is also of the same order, when both methods are compared. Further, these enzymatic activities were measured with use of various concentrations of substrates. From our experiments we conclude that the degree of stimulation of the apoenzyme of the two enzymes is independent of which way the enzymatic reaction is carried out or the substrate concentration, except that aspartate aminotransferase activity is more stimulated by the coenzyme at higher 2-oxoglutarate concentrations.