Purification and characterization of trans-permethrin metabolizing microsomal esterases from workers of the eastern subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar)

Three α-naphthyl acetate hydrolyzing esterase isozymes were purified from microsomes prepared from Reticulitermes flavipes workers. The two step process involved sequential preparative IEF followed by continuous elution preparative electrophoresis on a 5% non-denaturing polyacrylamide gel. The first IEF run resulted in 5.4-fold purification with a yield of 46.1%. Subsequent IEF further purified the esterases 14.3-fold and 12% yield. Preparative electrophoresis of the pooled IEF fractions produced three major peaks of α-naphthyl acetate hydrolyzing activity. The esterases were correspondingly designated microsomal esterase (ME) 1, ME 2, and ME 3 based on increasing molecular retention on a native PAGE gel. ME 1, ME 2, and ME 3 were acidic proteins with p I values of 4.61, 4.70, and 4.77, respectively. Molecular mass as determined by gel filtration chromatography of ME 1, ME 2, and ME 3 was 69, 64, and 62 kDa, respectively. SDS–PAGE gels produced a single band for each of the isozymes with a molecular mass of 63 kDa indicating that the esterases were monomers. Specific activities of ME 1, ME 2, and ME 3 increased with increasing pH and the enzymes were active over a broad temperature range (25–55°C). The three purified isozymes were inhibited at low concentration by paraoxon (10 −10 M), chlorpyrifos (10 −6 M), DEF (10 −6 M), and PMSF (10 −6 M) indicating that they were “B” type serine esterases. Conversely, inhibition was not observed at 10 −4 M eserine, PHMB, or CaCl 2, further supporting the conclusion that the microsomal esterases were of the “B” type. None of the isozymes was inhibited by 10 −4 M imidacloprid, fipronil, or PBO. Quantitatively, ME 1, ME 2 and ME 3 metabolized t-permethrin at 21.8, 21.0, and 38.8 nmol/h/mg protein, representing a purification factor of 333-, 318-, and 591-fold over microsomes, respectively. The three isozymes produced the same type and number of t-permethrin metabolites.