Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology 2009-01-01

Human phenylalanine monooxygenase and thioether metabolism.

Boontarika Boonyapiwat, Barry Panaretou, Ben Forbes, Stephen C Mitchell, Glyn B Steventon

Index: J. Pharm. Pharmacol. 61(1) , 63-7, (2009)

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Abstract

The substrate specificity of wild-type human phenylalanine monooxygenase (wt-hPAH) has been investigated with respect to the mucoactive drug, S-carboxymethyl-L-cysteine and its thioether metabolites. The ability of wt-hPAH to metabolise other S-substituted cysteines was also examined.Direct assays of PAH activity were by HPLC with fluorescence detection; indirect assays involved following disappearance of the cofactor by UV spectroscopy.wt-hPAH catalysed the S-oxygenation of S-carboxymethyl-L-cysteine, its decarboxylated metabolite, S-methyl-L-cysteine, and both their corresponding N-acetylated forms. However, thiodiglycolic acid was not a substrate. The enzyme profiles for both phenylalanine and S-carboxymethyl-L-cysteine showed allosteric kinetics at low substrate concentrations, with Hill constants of 2.0 and 1.9, respectively, for the substrate-activated wt-hPAH. At higher concentrations, both compounds followed Michaelis-Menten kinetics, with non-competitive substrate inhibition profiles. The thioether compounds, S-ethyl-L-cysteine, S-propyl-L-cysteine and S-butyl-L-cysteine were all found to be substrates for phenylalanine monooxygenase.Phenylalanine monooxygenase may play a wider role outside intermediary metabolism in the biotransformation of dietary-derived substituted cysteines and other exogenous thioether compounds.