Expression of glutathione S-transferases in rat brains.

The tissue-specific expression of glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) in rat brains has been studied by protein purification, in vitro translation of brain poly(A) RNAs, and RNA blot hybridization with cDNA clones of the Ya, Yb, and Yc subunit of rat liver GSTs. Four classes of GST subunits are expressed in rat brains at Mr 28,000 (Yc), Mr 27,000 (Yb), Mr 26,300, and Mr 25,000. The Mr 26,3000 species, or Y beta, has an electrophoretic mobility between that of Ya and Yb, similar to the liver Yn subunit(s) reported by Hayes (Hayes, J. D. (1984) Biochem. J. 224, 839-852). RNA blot hybridization of brain poly(A) RNAs with a liver Yb cDNA probe revealed two RNA species of approximately 1300 and approximately 1100 nucleotides. The band at approximately 1300 nucleotides was absent in liver poly(A) RNAs. The Mr 25,000 species, or Y delta, can be immunoprecipitated by antisera against rat heart and rat testis GSTs, but not by antiserum against rat liver GSTs. Therefore, the Y delta subunit may be related to the "Mr 22,000" subunit reported by Tu et al. (Tu, C.-P.D., Weiss, M.J., Li, N., and Reddy, C. C. (1983) J. Biol. Chem. 258, 4659-4662). The abundant liver GST subunits, Ya, are not expressed in rat brains as demonstrated by electrophoresis of purified brain GSTs and a lack of isomerase activity toward the Ya-specific substrate, delta 5-androstene-3,17-dione. This is apparently because of the absence of Ya mRNA expression prior to RNA processing. The data on the preferential expression of Yc subunits in rat brains, together with the differential phenobarbital inducibility of the Ya subunit(s) in rat liver reported by Pickett et al. (Pickett, C. B., Donohue, A. M., Lu, A. Y. H., and Hales, B. F. (1982) Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 215, 539-543), suggest that the Ya and Yc genes for rat GSTs are two functionally distinct gene families even though they share 68% DNA sequence homology. The expression of multiple GSTs in rat brains suggests that GSTs may be involved in physiological processes other than xenobiotics metabolism.