Effects of the Anticonvulsant Drugs on Succinic Semialdehyde Reductase from Bovine Brain

We have previously reported that an NADPH-dependent succinic semialdehyde reductase was purified homogeneously from bovine brain by several chromatographic procedures, and was found to be a monomeric protein with a molecular mass of 28 kDa (Cho et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 1993). Since succinic semialdehyde is an important intermediate in the ${\gamma}$-aminobutyrate(GABA) shunt and GABA level is associated with various forms of human neurological disorders, we have investigated the effects of anticonvulsant drugs on the succinic semialdehrde reductase. Among the drugs tested, sodium valproate and diphenylhydantoin inhibited the enzyme activity, while some other drugs, barbiturate and chlorpromazine, had no inhibitory effects on the enzyme activity. The purified enzyme was also injected as an immunogen into Balb/c mice to obtain monoclonal antibodies (mob) and several mobs to the protein were produced from the fusion experiments.