Kinetic properties of carnitine palmitoyltransferase I in cultured neonatal rat cardiac myocytes.

An understanding of the mechanism of malonyl-CoA interaction with carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT-I) in isolated mitochondria is complicated by membrane fragmentation and CPT-II exposure. Using cultured neonatal rat cardiac myocytes, as in situ model was developed to measure CPT-I. In the cardiac cells treated with 5 microM digitonin, CPT-II contamination of CPT activity is 0.62% as quantitated by citrate synthase activity present in damaged myocytes under assay conditions. Moreover, the sensitivity of myocyte CPT-I to malonyl-CoA, its substrate preference for decanoyl-CoA and the affinity of CPT-I for l-carnitine (0.19 mM) are comparable with similar measurements published for isolated cardiac mitochondrial membranes. There is no evidence in the cells for contamination of CPT-I activities by extramitochondrial sources, in particular, the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). The presence of carnitine octanoyltransferase (COT) is not detected either in the cells or in preparations of adult SR from which COT is subsequently isolated. With these control measurements, the inhibition kinetics of CPT-I in the cardiac cells in situ maintains a partial competitive pattern which is more pronounced with decanoyl-CoA than with palmitoyl-CoA as substrate. The presence of a malonyl-CoA/long chain acyl-CoA binding site on CPT-I, distinct from the inhibitory site, has previously been proposed. Existence of this binding region is consistent with partial inhibition kinetics so that malonyl-CoA at this site could modify the CPT-high-affinity malonyl-CoA inhibitory interaction, producing acylcarnitine even at high malonyl-CoA concentrations in the cell. These findings may help to explain, in part, the inability to suppress completely beta-oxidation in the heart where malonyl-CoA may be 50 to 100 times the estimated values of its Ki.