Evaluation of effects of albendazole on the kinetics of cytosolic glutathione transferase in skeletal muscles during experimental trichinellosis in mice.

In this study, the effect of trichinellosis as well as the effect of albendazole treatment on the kinetics of substrate saturation of cytosolic glutathione transferase (GST) in the skeletal muscles from infected mice was examined because the idea of multifunctional mode of action of anthelmintic drugs was considered. Our results pointed out to the influence of trichinellosis and albendazole treatment on the quaternary structure of GST in mouse muscles. A double reciprocal plot of GST saturation in control mice was biphasic with apparent low and high K (m) values equal to 0.54 and 1.0 mM, respectively. Infection with Trichinella spiralis in the third week postinfection caused a 2.3-fold increase in the high K (m) value and at the same time a 2.8-fold decrease in the low K (m). In the sixth week postinfection, the high K (m) value was unchanged, but the low K (m) value increased 2.3 times. Calculated from the double reciprocal plot of GST substrate saturation in muscles from infected and treated mice (measured in the third week postinfection only), the high K (m) value increased 1.4 times relative to the respective controls. The normal substrate saturation plot of GST in treated mice has a clearly "double sigmoid" character. Our results suggest that despite the complicated character of the GST saturation curve, albendazole seems to act as an allosteric activator for cytosolic GST in infected mouse muscles.