A sensitive method to assay the xanthine oxidase activity in primary cultures of cerebellar granule cells

Since xanthine oxidase (XO, Xanthine:oxidoreductase, E.C.1.2.3.22) is a key enzyme in reactive oxygen specie formation which plays a major role in cell oxidative stress, the availability of a sensitive and simple assay useful to detect its activity in monolayer cell cultures is worthwhile. In order to achieve this, we developed a method in which the conversion of pterine into isoxanthopterin is monitored fluorimetrically. Temperature assay was 50°C. The activity of XO was detected in cerebellar granule cells exposed to glutamate. Since XO is formed from protease-dependent xanthine dehydrogenase processing, its activity appearance was found to be prevented by the protease inhibitor, leupeptin, as well as the glutamate NMDA-receptor inhibitor, MK-801, and the Ca++ complexing agent, EGTA. The reported novel protocol, at variance with a conventional method, is shown to be a simple, fast, sensitive and relatively cheap method to assay XO activity. In addition, the reported assay can be applied to any cell type in culture.