Developmental and dietary induction of the 90K subunit of rat intestinal phytase

Abstract The activities of phytase and alkaline phosphatase in the intestine gradually increased in parallel during development of rats, but the 70K and 90K subunits were expressed differentially; only the 70K subunit was detected at birth, whereas the 90K subunit appeared at the weaning period (3 weeks after birth). When rats were forced to wean at 18 days old and fed laboratory chow, the enzyme activity increased markedly and the 90K subunit appeared within 1 day. These findings suggest that weaning is involved in the change in the subunit composition. Increases in the enzyme activity and amount of the 90K subunit were significantly delayed by feeding weanling animals on casein diet, but induced significantly by feeding them on casein diet supplemented with phytate. Thus induction of the 90K subunit seems to be accelerated by intake of phytic acid in the diet. The K m value of the enzyme from suckling rats for phytate was 5.25 mM, while that of adult rats was 0.213 mM. In contrast, the K m value for p -nitrophenyl phosphate (PNPP) was constant during development. The phytase activity of suckling rats did not show a distinct pH-dependence. These findings suggest that the 90K subunit may play some important roles in expressing an efficient phytase activity.