Hydrocortisone effect of arylsulfatase A in primary mouse brain cell cultures

The primary goal of this study was to study the mechanism of action of hydrocortisone (HC) on arylsulfatase A (ASA) in primary cultures of cells that were dissociated from the brains of embryonic mice. Cells were cultured in a defined medium in the absence or in the presence of 3 μM HC. The specific activity of ASA in nontreated cells was 1.297 U/mg (U = μmol/hr) while the value for the HC-treated cells was 0.783 U/mg. The authors data shows that HC inhibits ASA activity in these cultures cells (p < 0.001). The determination of the ASA enzyme activity was assayed primarily with the artificial substrate p-nitrocatechol sulfate. However, the natural substrate (cerebroside 35S-sulfate) also as active and correlated linearly with the activity of p-nitrocatechol sulfate. Purified ASA was isolated from calf brains and used to generate an antibody (Ab) against ASA. The specificity of the Ab for the ASA protein of cell cultures was tested in Ouchterlony double immunodiffusion studies. The Ab was used in a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to quantify the number of ASA molecules in the cell extracts from the embryonic mouse cell cultures. Preliminary data suggest that HC decreases the number of ASA molecules