Enzymatic Studies of Glucuronide Formation in Impaired Liver III. Effects of Carbon Tetrachloride and Ectromelia Virus Infection on Liver Glucuronide Formation in Mouse

Glucuronide formations by mouse liver homogenate in several liver impairments were studied by using 4-methyl umbelliferone as a glucuronide receptor. The results were as follows : 1. Subcutaneous or intraperitoneal administration of carbon tetrachloride to the mouse produced a significant increase in the liver glucuronyl transferase activity 12 or 24 hours after the treatment regardless of histological and enzymatic evidences of liver-cell necrosis. This increase was not attributed to the increase in the 'activator' of glucuronide formation but to the increase in the enzyme activity itself. 2. In Ectromelia virus mouse hepatitis, the glucuronyl transferase activity of the liver tissue was markedly reduced in severe cases. In moderate or milder cases, a slight increase in the activity was observed in a few of them in the early stage of the disease, and the activity was significantly decreased on the recovery in all of the cases which survived. 3. In the early stage of carbon tetrachloride injury when the glucuronyl transferase activity of whole mouse liver was increased and the decomposition of uridine diphosphate glucuronic acid by the liver tissue was also enhanced, the glucuronide formation in vivo was rather increased. It was thus considered that the whole liver glucuronyl transferase activity rather than the uridine diphosphate glucuronic acid content was responsible for the glucuronide formation in vivo as a rate-limiting factor.