The Importance of Erythrocyte Arginase Activity In Acute Myocardial

Arginase (L-Arginine amidinohydrolase; EC 3.5.3.1), the final enzyme in theurea cycle, is responsible for the detoxification of ammonia in the liver of themammalian. In extrahepatic mammalian tissues, arginase is believed to supply thecell with ornithine, a crucial metabolite in biosynthesis of glutamic acid, proline andpolyamines. The purpose of the present study is to investigate whether erythrocytearginase activity is changed in patients with acute myocardial infarction at 24 hour,48 hour and on day 10 post-infarction together with aspartate aminotransferase(AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB), themarkers of myocardial cell damage. In this study, 49 subjects with acute myocardialinfarction and 35 healthy volunteers were included. Erythrocyte arginase activitydetermination was carried out by the methods of Geyer and Dabich. Serum AST,LDH and CK-MB activities were measured with an automatic biochemistryanalyzer by commercial kits. Our results showed that both arginase and cardiacmarker enzyme activities are elevated at 24 hour post-infarction, and then they aredecreased at 48 hour post-infarction as compared to those at the first day whilethey are still elevated when compared with control group and except LDH, allenzyme activities are returned to control levels on day 10 post-infarction in patientswith acute myocardial infarction. We think that the observation of the changes inerythrocyte arginase activity at 24 hour, 48 hour and on day 10 post-infarction maybe useful for diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction.