Immobilization of xanthine oxidase on a polyaniline silicone support

A polyaniline silicone support to immobilize xanthine oxidase is proposed as a reactor coil to monitor the action of xanthine oxidase on hypoxanthine, xanthine and 6-mercaptopurine. A purified xanthine oxidase immobilized on this support lost 80 per cent of the initial activity after 12 min of use. Co-immobilization of superoxide dismutase and catalase increased the stability of immobilized xanthine oxidase so that the derivative maintained 79 per cent of its initial activity after 4.6 h of continuous use in which 1.5 mumol purine bases were converted by the immobilized enzyme system. There is no evidence of either polyaniline or protein leaching from the coil during 3 h of continuous use. When solutions (10 ml) of hypoxanthine, xanthine and 6-mercaptopurine were circulated individually through the xanthine oxidase-superoxide dismutase-catalase-polyaniline coil (1 mm internal diameter and 3 m in length, 3 ml internal volume) activities of 8.12, 11.17 and 1.09 nmol min-1 coil-1, respectively, were obtained. The advantages of the reactor configuration and the redox properties of the polymer, particularly with respect to immobilized oxidoreductases, make this methodology attractive for similar enzyme systems. This immobilized enzyme system using polyaniline-silicone as support converted 6-mercaptopurine to 6-thiouric acid with equal efficiency as resins based on polyacrylamide and polyamide 11.

Action of immobilized xanthine oxidase on purines

Xanthine oxidase was covalently immbolized on polyacrylamide gel beads, polyamide- 11 and dacron. Hypoxanthine (15 ml of 200 µM), prepared in 0.1 M phosphate buffer, pH 8.0, was circulated through a column containing 1.0g derivatized enzyme at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min at 28§C. Specific activities of 0.660, 0.072 and 0.016 Units/mg of protein were demonstrable for the polyacrylamide gel beads, dacron and polyamide-11 derivatives, respectively. The action of these water insoluble enzyme derivatives on 6 mercaptopurine (15 ml of 660 µM) was also investigated, under the same experimental conditions, showing specific activites of 0.063 Units/mg, 0.574 µUnits/mg and 0.118 µUnitis/mg, respectively. The 6-mercaptopurine oxidative pathway catalyzed by immobilized xanthine oxidase on dacron stopped at the intermediate compound 6-mercaptopurine oxidative on dracon stopped at the intermediate compound, 6-mercapto-8-hydroxypurine, so that no 6-thiouric acid was produced, whereas the immobilized preparations using polyacrylamide gel beads and polyamide-11 behaved like the soluble enzyme, namely, 6-thiouric acid was the final product. The behavior of dracon-xanthine oxidase immobilized on these three supports was similar to the soluble enzyme. However, although its oxidation is stoichiometric for polyacrylamide gel beads and polyamide- 11 derivatives, and no xanthine formation is observed (steady-state equilibrium), under the action of the enzymedacron derivative the xanthine formation rate (0.164 µUnits/mg) is higher than the uric acid formation rate (0.017 µUnits/mg) compared to the hypoxanthine consumption (0.072 µUnits/mg). These findings suggest again that xanthine oxidase-dacron derivative is limited to the catalysis of oxidation of hypoxanthine carbon atom number 2 as in 6-mercaptopurine