Quaternary ammonium sulfanilamide: a membrane-impermeant carbonic anhydrase inhibitor.

A novel carbonic anhydrase (CA) inhibitor, quaternary ammonium sulfanilamide (QAS), was tested for potency as a CA inhibitor and for its ability to be excluded from permeating biological membranes. Inhibitor titration plots of QAS vs. pure bovine CA II and CA from the gills of the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, yielded Ki values of approximately 15 microM; thus QAS is a relatively weak but effective CA inhibitor. Permeability of the QAS was directly tested by two independent methods. The inhibitor was excluded from human erythrocytes incubated in 5 mM QAS for 24 h as determined using an 18O-labeled mass spectrometer CA assay for intact cells. Also QAS injected into the hemolymph of C. sapidus (1 or 10 mM) did not cross the basal membrane of the gill. The compound was cleared from the hemolymph by 96 h after injection, and at no time during that period could the QAS be detected in homogenates of gill tissue. Total branchial CA activity was only slightly reduced following the QAS injection. These data indicate that QAS is a CA inhibitor to which biological membranes are impermeable and that can be used in vivo or in vitro in the study of membrane-associated CA.