Hepatic and extrahepatic uptake of intravenously injected lipoprotein lipase.

Rats were injected intravenously with 125I-labeled bovine lipoprotein lipase. The lipase disappeared within minutes from the blood due to uptake both in the liver (about 50% of the injected dose) and in extrahepatic tissues. Lipase enzyme activity disappeared in parallel to the 125I radioactivity. Thus, there was no inactivation of lipase in the circulating blood. Similar results were obtained when lipoprotein lipase purified from guinea pigs was injected into guinea pigs. Using supradiphragmatic rats we could show that the extrahepatic uptake was saturable and that the amounts of lipase that could be bound far exceeded the amounts of endogenous lipase expected to be present on the endothelium. When the lipase was denatured before injection, its removal in supradiaphragmatic rats became slower, and in intact rats the fraction of the uptake that occurred in extrahepatic tissues was much decreased. It is concluded that recognition by the extrahepatic receptors depends on the native conformation of the lipase. The extrahepatic uptake was strongly impeded by injection of heparin prior to injection of the lipase, and the uptake could to a large extent be reversed by injection of heparin after the lipase. Even after 1 h lipase that had been taken up by extrahepatic tissues reappeared immediately in the blood on injection of heparin. This was true both for enzyme activity and for enzyme radioactivity. Thus, internalization-inactivation-degradation occur only slowly in extrahepatic tissues. It is possible that the extrahepatic binding occurs to the enzyme's physiological receptors. The hepatic uptake was not dependent on the native conformation of the lipase, was less sensitive to heparin, could not be reversed by heparin and was not saturable. The enzyme was not rapidly inactivated after uptake; its activity could be detected in liver homogenates even after 1 h. Degradation to acid-soluble products in the liver was relatively slow; the t1/2 for native lipase was about 1 h. In comparison, in parallel experiments asialofetuin was degraded with a t1/2 of about 15 min.