Studies on fatty acid binding protein

Sheridan, Mary Teresa (1989) Studies on fatty acid binding protein. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

It has been shown that the concentration of liver FABP in female rats had increased 20 times 60 days after birth when compared to the concentration in foetal liver at 18 days gestation. The concentration of FABP in human foetal liver was, however, very similar to that in one sample of human adult liver. Also the concentration of this protein was similar in the liver of maternal and virgin rats. No hepatic FABP could be detected in human placenta, and, even though FABP could be detected in a human hepatoma derived cell line, Hep G2, the production of this protein by this cell line could not be stimulated. Short synthetic radiolabelled oligonucleotide DNA probes, complementary to regions of rat liver FABP mRNA, were used to perform both dot blot hybridization and Northern blotting, in order to demonstrate that the concentration of rat liver FABP mRNA in female rats increases during development from the foetus to the adult. This increase, when determined by Northern blotting, was of similar magnitude to the change in the protein concentration over the same period. Finally attempts to demonstrate FABP binding to the rat liver microsomal fraction highlighted the possible involvement of ATP in the phenomenon. Subsequent work using the fluorescent ATP analogue 2[3'] Trinitrophenyl-adenosine-triphosphate, demonstrated a single high affinity binding site on rat liver FABP for this probe.

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