The effects of ethanol and acetaldehyde on the products of protein synthesis by liver mitochondria.

Ethanol and acetaldehyde, alone or in combination, at physiologic concentrations, significantly inhibit mitochondrial protein synthesis in vitro. Mitochondria from rats chronically fed ethanol also display a reduced rate of mitochondrial protein synthesis in vitro. This effect is further aggravated by addition of ethanol to the incubation medium. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-gel electrophoresis of mitochondria fractionated with acetic acid-lubrol, which were incubated in the presence of ethanol or acetaldehyde, revealed a modest over-all decrease in labeling. However, a polypeptide fraction in the molecular weight range of 36,000 to 40,000 was conspicuously decreased. This range includes subunits of cytochrome oxidase, cytochrome b, and ATPase. Liver mitochondria from rats fed ethanol chronically showed a comparable decrease in the 36,000- to 40,000-molecular weight peak after incubation with radioactive leucine in vitro and fractionation with acetic acid-lubrol. Similar results were obtained when mitochondrial protein synthesis was determined in vivo in chronically treated rats. The data suggest that chronic ethanol consumption interferes with mitochondrial membrane biogenesis and that several products are more sensitive to this effect than others.