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Sterol carrier protein-2 (SCP2) is a peroxisomal protein most highly expressed in non-steroidogenic tissues such as liver and small intestine. We have examined SCP2 gene expression during development and after alterations in lipid and bile acid metabolism and compensatory cell growth in the rat. The developmental expression of SCP2 displayed a biphasic pattern of relative mRNA abundance with a peak at day 19 to 20 of fetal life, reaching adult levels by day 14 and after day 14 in small intestine. In adult rats there was no effect on SCP2 mRNA abundance, or the relative proportions of the four SCP2 transcripts after gemfibrozil treatment, 30-fold changes in hepatic cholesteryl ester and triglyceride levels, bile ligation, compensatory hepatic or renal growth. However, immunoblot analysis of tissue homogenates revealed that SCP2 protein is decreased by 75% in the livers of gemfibrozil-treated animals and increased by 5-fold at 48 h in regenerating liver and in the remaining kidney after unilateral nephrectomy. Taken together these results suggest that SCP2 gene expression is developmentally regulated and modulated translationally or post-translationally in the adult rat by gemfibrozil and compensatory cell growth.

Rat hepatic apolipoprotein B (apoB) mRNA editing is regulated developmentally as well as by hormonal and nutritional modulation of hepatic lipogenesis, changes previously associated with coordinate modulation of hepatic apoA-IV gene expression. We have examined the effects of dexamethasone administration on apoB mRNA editing and the expression of other apolipoprotein genes in both neonatal and adult rats. Administration of dexamethasone increased hepatic triglyceride content in neonatal rats and increased hepatic but not intestinal apoA-IV mRNA abundance. However, neither the developmental profile nor the extent of hepatic apoB mRNA editing was changed after hormone administration. Dexamethasone produced a dose-dependent increase in adult hepatic triglyceride content and a coordinate fourfold increase in hepatic but not intestinal apoA-IV mRNA abundance, and hepatic and serum apoA-IV protein concentrations. Immunocytochemical localization revealed apoA-IV to be expressed in hepatocytes around the central vein while dexamethasone treatment produced a dose-dependent appearance of fat-filled hepatocytes throughout the lobule that were immunoreactive for apoA-IV. Despite these changes in hepatic triglyceride accumulation there was no change in the extent of hepatic apoB mRNA editing at any dose of dexamethasone. The data suggest that hormonal and metabolic modulation of hepatic apoB mRNA editing may be independent of factors that modulate apoA-IV gene expression despite alterations in hepatic triglyceride content.

We have studied the consequences of alterations to hepatic apoB mRNA editing on the biosynthesis and intracellular distribution of newly synthesized apoB variants together with their mass distribution in nascent Golgi very low density lipoproteins (VLDL). Radiolabeled liver membrane fractions were prepared from control or hypothyroid animals and separated by discontinuous sucrose gradient centrifugation. Hepatic apoB-100 synthesis in these groups accounted for 93-100% of total newly synthesized apoB species of Golgi fractions recovered from the sucrose gradients (G1 and G2). The analogous fractions isolated from the livers of hyperthyroid (treated with 3,3',5-triiodo-L-thyronine, T3) animals revealed that newly synthesized apoB-100 accounted for only 46 +/- 10% (G1) and 24 +/- 11% (G2), respectively, of total newly synthesized apoB. ApoB-100 mass in nascent Golgi VLDL from control and hypothyroid G1 fractions represented 70-78% total apoB as determined by Western blot analysis. By contrast, Golgi VLDL from hyperthyroid animals contained predominantly (greater than 78%) apoB-48 as the apoB species. Electron microscopy revealed that the morphology and size distribution of hyperthyroid G1 VLDL were similar to particles isolated from control animals. Thus, despite a profound reduction in the proportion of apoB-100 mRNA species containing an unmodified codon (CAA, B-GLN) at position 2153 in hyperthyroid animals (6 +/- 1% vs 50-61% in control and hypothyroid animals) apoB-100 biosynthesis was detectable in a defined membrane fraction isolated by discontinuous sucrose gradient centrifugation. However, no apoB-100 synthesis was detectable in liver samples prepared by Polytron disruption in Triton-containing buffers. These data suggest that effective hepatic VLDL assembly and secretion in the T3-treated rat continues despite a profound reduction in apoB-100 biosynthesis and implies that apoB-48 contains the requisite domains to direct this process, a situation analogous to that in the intestine.

Fetal, newborn, and suckling piglets were used to study the intestinal expression of the apoA-IV gene in the immature mammal. Swine apoA-IV (42 kD) was isolated from fat-fed piglet lipoprotein-deficient plasma by adsorption to Intralipid followed by preparative sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and electroelution. Rabbit anti-swine apoA-IV antibodies were raised, and apoA-IV was immunoprecipitated from small intestinal homogenates after in vivo radiolabeling with [3H]leucine. ApoA-IV synthesis was expressed as a percentage of total protein synthesis from trichloroacetic acid-precipitable counts. Fetal (40 day gestation) whole small intestine synthesis was 2.1%. Postnatally, 2-day-old newborn piglets given high triglyceride and low triglyceride duodenal infusions, as well as bile diversion, were studied. Synthesis rates in jejunal mucosa in all groups were comparable to the fetal whole intestinal value except in the jejunum of the high-triglyceride group, where synthesis was increased sevenfold. In 1- to 2-week-old fasting, cream-fed, and bile-diverted piglets synthesis was again unchanged except in the fat-fed jejunum, where synthesis doubled. Ileal synthesis rates in newborn and suckling animals were lower than jejunal rates and did not increase with lipid absorption or decrease with bile diversion. Northern blot hybridization of intestinal RNA samples from the newborn groups with an authentic cross-hybridizing human apoA-IV cDNA probe revealed a 1.8 kb signal which was strongest in the high-triglyceride jejunal samples. Slot blot hybridization showed eightfold increased apoA-IV mRNA levels in high-triglyceride jejunal samples as compared to low-triglyceride and bile-diverted jejunum with no differences in beta actin mRNA abundance.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)