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Differences in phospholipase A 2 activity between males and females and Asian Indians and Caucasians
Author(s) -
KUSLYS T.,
VISHWANATH B. S.,
FREY F. J.,
FREY B. M.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
european journal of clinical investigation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.164
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1365-2362
pISSN - 0014-2972
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2362.1996.136276.x
Subject(s) - medicine , arachidonic acid , endocrinology , proinflammatory cytokine , phospholipase a2 , biology , enzyme , inflammation , biochemistry
There is epidemiological evidence that chronic inflammatory diseases occur more frequently in female than in male subjects and prevail differently in various ethnic populations. Phospholipase A 2 (PLA 2 ) (group II) plays a key role in many inflammatory reactions by releasing free arachidonic acid, which is a prerequisite for the production of proinflammatory lipid mediators. We therefore, measured PLA 2 activity in plasma, serum, leucocytes and lymphocytes in 20 female and 20 male subjects, 10 of each group being of Asian Indian and of Caucasian origin respectively. When PLA 2 activity was measured in crude plasma and serum no dependency from gender and ethnicity was observed. Following acid extraction and heating, PLA 2 activity in plasma was higher in Caucasians (27.8 ± 2.2 nmol L −1 mg −1 protein 60 min −1 ) than in Asian Indians (17.9 ± 2.5 nmol L −1 mg −1 protein 60 min −1 ) ( P < 0.005) and higher in females (28.5 ± 2.6 nmol L −1 mg −1 protein 60 min −1 ) than in males (17.3 ± 2.0 nmol L −1 mg −1 protein 60 min −1 ) ( P < 0.001). Similar differences were observed when only Asian Indian or Caucasian females were compared with their corresponding males. Contrary to plasma, in which the specific activity of PLA 2 increased following acid extraction and heating, the activity was completely abrogated in serum after extraction and heating. Lymphocytes exhibited lower activities of PLA 2 than neutrophils in all four groups of subjects investigated. Females had a tendency towards higher PLA 2 activity in both lymphocytes and neutrophils than males. In conclusion the present investigation revealed an ethnic‐ and sex‐dependent basal activity of PLA 2 , a key enzyme in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory diseases.