Differential biotransformation of glyceryl trinitrate by red blood cell-supernatant fraction and pulmonary vein homogenate.

We have demonstrated previously that glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) undergoes biotransformation to two glyceryl dinitrate (GDN) metabolites in the human red blood cell-supernatant fraction (RBC-SF) by hemoglobin-mediated and sulfhydryl-dependent enzymatic mechanisms. In the present study, we have shown that biotransformation of GTN in rabbit RBC-SF yields a glyceryl-1,2-dinitrate (1,2-GDN)/glyceryl-1,3-dinitrate (1,3-GDN) ratio of 5.3. Following inhibition of hemoglobin-mediated biotransformation of GTN by carbon monoxide (CO), the 1,2-GDN/1,3-GDN ratio was 2.1. Following inhibition of sulfhydryl-dependent biotransformation by N-ethylmaleimide (NEM), the 1,2-GDN/1,3-GDN ratio was 30.0. We have demonstrated previously that for GTN-induced vasodilation of isolated bovine pulmonary vein (BPV), the 1,2-GDN/1,3-GDN ratio was 7.1, which indicated that a hemoprotein-dependent process was involved in GTN biotransformation. To determine if this was the case, the biotransformation of GTN (0.51 microM) was studied in BPV homogenates; 31.1 pmol GDN/mg BPV protein was formed in 20 min. The 1,2-GDN/1,3-GDN ratio was 1.1, which indicated that hemoprotein-mediated biotransformation did not occur. This conclusion was supported by the fact that CO did not inhibit GTN biotransformation. GTN biotransformation by BPV homogenate was inhibited 62% by NEM, 89% by boiling of the homogenate, and almost completely by boiling plus NEM. These results indicated that biotransformation of GTN by the BPV homogenate involved in a combination of enzymatic and nonenzymatic processes that were mostly sulfhydryl dependent. It is concluded that the mechanism for GTN biotransformation in isolated intact BPV, which yielded preferential formation of 1,2-GDN, was rendered nonfunctional upon tissue homogenization.