Associations between serum gamma-glutamyltransferase and apolipoproteins: relationships with hepatobiliary diseases.

We studied the association between gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) and apolipoproteins A or B in serum of 42 patients with various hepatobiliary diseases. Binding of the enzyme to apolipoprotein A is not related to a clearly defined disease, but appears to be mainly influenced by the ratio of total cholesterol to GGT activity. An important fraction of GGT activity is associated with apolipoprotein B in patients with icteric or anicteric cholestasis. Conversely, in noncholestatic patients, the percentage of apolipoprotein B-bound GGT activity is low. Addition of the "heavy" form of GGT, obtained by solubilizing the membrane-bound enzyme with detergents, to a serum with low GGT activity led to the binding of the enzyme only to apolipoprotein A. The "light" form of GGT, obtained by limited proteolysis of the "heavy" form and added to the same serum, did not bind to either apolipoprotein A or apolipoprotein B. Thus, the association between the serum enzyme and apolipoprotein A apparently results from nonspecific aggregation of the amphiphilic "heavy" form of the enzyme. The origin of the apolipoprotein B-GGT complexes found in cholestatic patients needs further investigation.