Substrate inhibition of rat liver and kidney arginase with fluoride.

Fluoride is an uncompetitive inhibitor of rat liver arginase. This study has shown that fluoride caused substrate inhibition of rat liver arginase at substrate concentrations above 4 mM. Rat kidney arginase was more sensitive to inhibition by fluoride than liver arginase. For both liver and kidney arginase preincubation with fluoride had no effect on the inhibition. When assayed with various concentrations of L-arginine, rat kidney arginase did not have Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Lineweaver-Burk and Eadie-Hofstee plots were nonlinear. Kidney arginase showed strong substrate activation at concentrations of L-arginine above 4 mM. Within narrow concentrations of L-arginine, the inhibition of kidney arginase by fluoride was uncompetitive. Fluoride caused substrate inhibition of kidney arginase at L-arginine concentrations above 1 mM. The presence of fluoride prevented the substrate activation of rat kidney arginase.