The determination of lipoprotein lipase activity: Effect of different albumin preparations

Albumin is the physiological free fatty acid acceptor for triglyceride hydrolysis by lipoprotein lipase in vivo and is generally used as the acceptor for free fatty acids in the enzyme assay in vitro. Albumin preparations vary greatly in the type and amount of contaminants present. A crystalline preparation of bovine albumin gave us the highest enzyme activity. A fatty acid poor albumin preparation (fraction V) yielded much less lipase activity. Dialysis of this preparation against NaCl, EDTA or cyanide improved enzyme activity but did not restore rates of hydrolysis comparable to rates with the crystalline albumin preparations.