Effects of fasting and tryptophan force-feeding on the activity of hepatic nuclear RNA polymerases in rats

Abstract

The effects of fasting, and subsequent force-feeding of L-tryptophan on the activity of hepatic nuclear DNA-dependent RNA polymerases were studied in adult (5–6 weeks old), and old (5–6 months old) male Wistar rats. Liver nuclei, nucleoli, and nucleoplasmic fraction were isolated from rats following a single tube-feeding of tryptophan or water, and were assayed in vitro for the activity of different RNA polymerases. Whereas in adult rats 24 h of fasting caused a significant reduction in the activity of RNA polymerase I and II, in old rats the activity of only polymerase II was decreased after 24 h of fasting. In fasted adult rats administration of tryptophan promptly restored the activities of both polymerases to the respective normal fed levels, while in old rats none of the polymerases were affected by tryptophan. In fasted adult rats the pattern of response for both forms of polymerases to a single tube-feeding of tryptophan, over a period of 5 h, was found to be biphasic. When ribonuclease activity of nuclei was suppressed by performing incubations at low temperatures (17–30°C) the difference between the two groups for polymerase I was greatly reduced, and for polymerase II the difference was fully abolished. Pre-treatment of fasted adult rats with cycloheximide (1.5 mg/kg) was found to abolish the 30 min tryptophan-mediated stimulation of both polymerase I and II activities. In cycloheximide pre-treated rats the activity of polymerase II, but not polymerase I returned to its original level 5 h after tryptophan force-feeding.

Key Words:

• age
• α-amanitin
• hepatic RNA polymerases
• rats
• RNA synthesis
• tryptophan force-feeding