Structural investigations on pharmaceutical enzymes. Ornithine transcarbamylase (OCT) from bovine liver.

Ornithine transcarbamylase (OCT) is one of the urea-cycle enzymes in mitochondria which is involved in metabolic disorders in man. Reye's syndrome, characterized by encephalopathy and fatty infiltration of the liver, is one of such diseases. During this syndrome a reduction of OCT specific activity was observed, probably due to increased proteolytic degradation or to alteration in the enzyme conformation. It has recently been found that OCT administration to patients with liver disorders, contributes to illness resolution. Since the therapeutic properties of the enzymes are usually related to their structure, this paper reports some findings obtained by spectroscopic measurements on OCT structure and conformation stability in solution.